Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/163

Rh rapidly on, and soon the three were almost alone. Out leaped Lavinia and Matilda and walked along the level way that curved round a great gorge.

"Go on and let me be. It is all so magnificent it almost takes my breath away. I must just sit a minute, like a passive bucket, and let it pour into me," said Lavinia, in a solemn tone.

Mat understood; for her own heart and soul were full, and with a silent kiss of sympathy, walked on, leaving her sister to enjoy that early mass in a grander cathedral than any built with hands.

In spite of the sunshine it was very cold, and when the three met again their noses looked like the eldest Miss Pecksniff's, "as if Aurora had nipped and tweaked it with her rosy fingers." Subsiding into their places with pale, excited faces, they went silently on for a long time, with no sound but the chime of the bells on the horses who were covered with a light hoar-frost. Wrapped up to their eyes, like Egyptian women, sat Livy and Amanda; while Matilda, having tried to sketch Monte Rosa, and given it up, made a capital caricature of them as they ate cold chicken, and drank wine, in a primitive manner, out of the bottle.

Rh