Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/62

78 with their great forks, that it might dry in the wind and the sun. That is the way here.

How the drops glittered in the sunshine! A glorious day!

The 18th.—Although the sun may be a rare guest in Rossinières valley, and seldom gives us its heart-cheering beams two days in succession, yet has it now afforded us, one day after another of indescribable beauty, when the wind has blown warm and yet fresh at the same time, the air been light, and when the whole of our little valley with its smaragdus-green pasture-fields and its fragrant hay-harvest, has been like a little abode of comfort and health. During this time our large bee-hive, as I call our chalet, with its many little rooms and windows, has filled with guests, who swarm forth into the valley. Two large tables are daily filled at noon and in the evening. There is an abundance of honey, milk, cream, butter, and cheese, in a word, of every kind of food belonging to pastoral life, and this of the very best—to say nothing of more substantial fare. People live here, for a season, simply and abundantly. I am perfectly amazed at the bowls of thick, whipped cream, which are carried every evening round the crowded tables and from which every guest can heap up his plate. Either with or without wood-strawberries, this prepared cream is really a heavenly kind of food. The crowning charm of the pastoral life of Rossinière is, that it is as cheap as it is excellent.

As in the mean time there is an incessant banging and slamming of doors in our bee-hive, I am as little within as possible, and as I do not like sitting long at