"O, yes, mother," said Rollo. "The road is as smooth, and level, and hard as a floor. Besides, you said that you meant to make a pedestrian excursion somewhere while you were in Switzerland, and there could not be a better place than this."
"I know I said so," replied Mrs. Holiday, "but I was not really in earnest. Besides, I don't think I could possibly walk six miles. But we will take a carriage and ride there, if your father is willing."
"But, mother, it is not so pleasant to ride You can't see so well, for the top of the carriage, or else the driver on his high seat before, will be more or less in the way. Then when you are walking you can stop so easily any minute, and look around. But if you are in a carriage, it makes a fuss and trouble to be calling continually upon the coachman to stop; and then, besides, half of the time, before he gets the carriage stopped you have got by the place you wanted to see."
What Rollo said is very true. We can see a country containing a series of fine landscapes much more thoroughly by walking through it, or riding on horseback, than by going in a carriage. I do not think, however, that, after all, this advantage constituted the real inducement in Rollo's mind which made him so desirous of walking to Aigle. The truth was, that the little walk which he had taken to Chillon with the party of pedestrian boys had quite filled his imagination with the pleasures and the independent dignity of this mode of travelling, and he was very ambitious of making an experiment of it himself.
"And, mother," continued Rollo, "after all, it is only about two hours and a half or three hours, at two or three miles an hour. Now, you are often gone as much as that, making calls; and when you are making calls you generally go, I am sure, as much as two or three miles an hour."
"But I generally ride, making calls," said Mrs. Holiday.
"Yes, mother, but sometimes you walk; and I think when you walk you are often gone more than three hours."
"That is true," said Mrs. Holiday, "I admit; but then, you know, when I am making calls I am resting a great deal of the time at the houses where I call."
"I know that," said Rollo; "and so we will rest, sitting down by the road side."
Mrs. Holiday admitted that Rollo had rather the best of the argument; but she was still quite unwilling to believe that she could really walk six miles.