Moths by Ouida — page 225: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MOTHS. 322 “So she thinks I shall help her to her vengeance on Sergius Zouroff,” he thought. ‘Vous etes mal tombee, duchessel? August noontide is cool enough in the duchy of Salzburg; he did not feel in the mood for the chatter of the casino and the humors of the Trinkhalle, for the pretty women in their swing- ing chairs and whist and ecartein the river-balconies; there were half a hundred people here who in another half-hour would seize on him beyond escape, as they trooped back from their morning exercise and baths. He bethought himself of an offer of horses mae him by a grand duke staying there. sent a line to the dulze’s equerry, and, before his acquaintances had returned from — the irinkhalle, was riding slowly out on a handsome Hungarian mare, taking his road by chance, as he paced out of the little town, following the ways of the Traun as it flowed along to- a Styria, with the wood-clothed hills rising to right and eft. | There is a noble road that runs through the Weissbach Thal to the lake of Attersee. It is sixteen miles or more of forest roade way. The wood are grand, the trees are giants, moss-growz with age, -nd set iii a wilderness of ferns and flowers; the Weiss- bach rushes through them white with perpetual foam; the great hills are half light, half gloom beyond the branches, and there is the gray of glaciers, the aerial blue of crevasses, forever shining behind the forest foliage, where the clouds lie on the mountains, where summer lightnings flash, and summer rains drift like mist. Uhe place is full of birds and all wild woodland creatures; there us scarcely a habitation from one end of the road to the other. Where any wood has been cleared, there are tracts cf tilac heather and of broom; here and there is a cross, telling of some sudden death from flood, or frost, or woodman’s misad- venture; under the broad drooping branches of Siberian pines, countless little streams rise and bubble through the grasses; and at the end of it all there is the blue bright lake, blue as a mouse- ear, bright as a child’s eyes—the largest lake in all Austria, War-worn Europe has little left that is more beautiful than that grand, tranquil, solitary forest-ride, with that azure water for its goal and crown. ; The Attersee is very lovely, blue as the Mediterranean, radi- antly, wonderfully blue, sweeping away into the distance to the Schaffberg range, with white-sailed boats upon it, and here and there, alas! the trail of a steamer as the vessels go to and from Unterach and Steinbach and Nussdorf. At Weissbach the meadows go close down to the water, meadows of that rich, long, flower-filled grass that is the glory of Austria and grows all about the little white stone quays; the boats come up to the edge of the meadows, and the rowers, or those who sail in them, land in that knee-deep grass, under the shade of beech-trees. There is a little summer inn on theshore, with balconies and hanging creepers; it is modest and does not greatly hurt the scene; the hills rise sheer and bold above it. A little higher yet are the mountains of the Hochlaken and Hoellen ranges, where you can shoot, if you will, the golden eagle and the vulture. " comicbooks ¢ a oo wee we te