Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/70

86 edification, my young girls, five of the six sisters, and two pretty young Americans, each taking her part, as teacher of a little troop of children. My bashful, blushing, and grave neighbor, with her spectacles, I saw surrounded by a dozen boys, whom she instructed with perfect self-possession, and at the same time with youthful delight and motherly sobriety.

After all, the better day dawns for the life of woman on earth; the narrow valley extends its bounds, and many paths are opened. There will be room, work, and life's gladness sufficient for all who sincerely seek and desire to find. Thus spake the conviction of my soul in the Sunday-school of Rossinières.

July 24th.—I have taken my last ramble amongst the mountains which surround this valley. The valleys of Chateau-d'Œx and Rossinières, are seen stretched out, from above, like verdant pasture-meadows, surrounded on every side by lofty mountain walls; and there below, have small two-legged creatures, called human beings, built little dwellings for themselves, no larger, apparently, than mole heaps, with openings on the sunny side.

These Alps are traversed in every direction by footpaths. However high you may ascend, you always find a winding road between the mountains, and just when you fancy yourself at the top of the mountain, you see before you, a grassy plain, a Swiss cottage, children and flowers, sometimes the prettiest group of pines and deciduous trees, and before you, new heights, with pasture, fields, cattle, and cottages, and so on, everywhere, till at last wood and pasturage cease and the bare mountain alone rears towards heaven its