The Argosy — page 299: what you’re looking at

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

280 Fack Laybourne’s Inheritance. walk. And even yet, in these middle July days, the snow lay in a dazzling sheet round the lake, whose upper surface was frozen hard, while below the ice the water slumbered in translucent depths of intensest blue. Our bald disjointed chat was silenced for a moment by the pure, mysterious air, and the stillness of the solitude was un- broken but for the cawing of some rooks in a clump of firs below. The valley was filled with gleaming silver mist; to the right rose the long, sharp ridge of the Dent du Midi, amethyst-hued, and in the far distance stretched the noble line of the Savoy Alps—the rose of morning still upon their glittering crests. ‘““Tsn’t it pretty ?” said a young lady. “ Ain’t it jolly, just!” remarked an appreciative youth. And so the spell was broken. The young people began to snow- ball one another, and the elders scrambled about as well as their respective years would allow them, and gathered wild flowers. “Oh mother! Look at mother!” suddenly cried Rita, in a sharp tone of terror, and sprang to Mrs. Laybourne’s side. The widow had sunk upon the ground in a sitting posture, and, deadly pale, with her hand pressed to her side, was painfully gasping for breath. ‘‘Oh! please let her have air!” said Rita imploringly, as every- body gathered round in consternation. ‘It is her heart. She should never have taken this walk.” Of course everybody had a suggestion to make. The English offered to fetch wine, and the foreigners eau sucrée. ‘‘Somebody must go to the nearest chalet and fetch a chair and find two men to carry her down in it,” said Rita rapidly, and with clear decision. I was struck, even at that moment, by her self-control and tone of instinctive authority. Jack and several others went off for the chair and the men, all-of which were soon there. Mrs, Laybourne, very slowly and with in- finite precautions, was conveyed to the pension, and there carried to herroom. Her daughters installed themselves beside her. A doctor was sent for from Sepey, and the pension inmates stood about in consternated little groups until he arrived. He ordered quiet, and did not conceal the possibility of danger. This incident dashed everybody’s spirits, and, to make matters worse, the next day the weather broke and for about a week the most dismal dulness reigned. We had nothing to do but enquire a dozen times a-day after the invalid, and watch the storms sweep up the valley. It was magnificent to see the huge mass of drenched mist and sulphurous cloud roll onwards, reft at rapidly recurring intervals by the swift scimitar of the lightning; but I venture to think that the most poetically attuned soul grows weary of a thunderstorm which — lasts a week. At the Hotel du Sceptre, at any rate, almost every- Gomichbooks.co