"Ah!" said Philippe, "instead of pitying them, you ought to rejoice for them. They are so glad when they get any body to carry up! They are paid about three quarters of a dollar apiece, and that is a great deal of money for them. There will be a great many of them up there to-morrow, waiting, and hoping that somebody will come for them to carry up."
"Ah, that makes it different," said Rosie.
"Besides," said Josie, "you are nothing to carry, you are so little and light. Rollo and I could carry you. I suppose that they would carry Rosie for half price—would not they, Philippe?"
Rosie looked a little troubled to hear her brother speak of her in this way. She did not like to be called little and light. Philippe saw that she was troubled.
"No," said he; "they will ask the same for carrying Miss Rosie that they would for any other lady."
This answer removed in an instant the cloud which had appeared upon Rosie's face, and replaced it with a smile which had something of the expression of triumph in it. In fact, Philippe shaped his answer as he did on purpose to please her. It was strange that a guide, whose life had been spent among the roughest of men, on the mountains, should know better how to be polite than a boy who had been brought up tenderly in the midst of refinement and elegance; but so it often is.
"How long does it take to go up the steep part?" asked Mrs. Gray.
"About an hour," said Philippe. "They stop two or three times on the way, to rest the bearers, and change them."
"Then they change the bearers," said Mrs. Gray.