It was not Mont Blanc that towered in the distance across the blue lake, but the Dent du Midi, white and austere. It was not the morning star, but Hesperus, that glittered in the rosy sunset light: but these details did not matter. The spirit of the mountains seemed to pass into the child’s heart; it seemed to be herself, not the poet, who was chanting the great Hymn.
At first, it was as if she had never seen them before; she could only gaze and wonder. By and by they grew familiar again, but with a difference; they were her friends now, beloved and reverenced. Soon she began to weave webs of fancy about and about them, as was her way about everything.
The Dent du Midi himself was a vast giant; like Atlas, only snow-white, instead of earth-brown as she had always pictured the latter. He was not a king, Mont Blanc was the king, as “Lor’ Birron” told her in the one specimen of his poetry enshrined in the Choix. “Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains: they crowned him long ago”; yes, doubtless. But the Dent was one of the great princes of his court; held indeed a court of his own, with the Dent d’Oche and the Dent de Morche for his attendant dukes or marquises, and a host of other nobles who wore green robes under their white stoles. Some of these were lady-mountains, Honor loved to think; lovely maidens, with flashing jewels (those were the streams that danced and shone in the sunlight) and delicate trailing robes and veils of mist. They ministered to the Prince, singing to him with their musical voices—the streams again: it was quite simple to change them from jewels to voices—veiling and unveiling their beauty at his pleasure. But in the evening, the great star, Hesperus, who was Venus herself, Madame Madeleine said (which one did not understand, but that did not matter) rose out of the sunset over the Prince’s shoulder, kissed him, hovered radiant above him; and then the mountain maidens bowed their heads under their white veils and paid homage to their Queen.
All this Honor had dreamed, sitting there in the garden, when she ought to have been studying.
The dream came back to her to-night, with power; it seemed to fill the world. They were not, they could not be, mere masses of earth, these glorious forms towering into the sky. They surely were mighty beings, wrapped in their own deep thoughts, holding their own high converse one with another.
And now, she had come to the mountains. Not only were they her own, but she was theirs. Not a mountain child, like the mighty Twins, or even like Zitli—happy Zitli, who knew no other world than this glorious one; but an adopted child, say! She had come to visit them; they would be kind to her, would accept her love and reverence. It was very wonderful.
The châlet stood half way up one of the lesser Alps, on a ledge which jutted out from the green wooded slope. All around were other Alps, some green to the top, others capped or mantled with snow; others again, which seemed to scorn all covering, and towered gaunt and bare, their rocky sides seamed and scarred. These were dead giants, Honor thought. She did not love to look on them, they were too terrifying; she lifted her eyes to the loftiest summit of all, that of the Dent du Midi himself, the mighty Prince of her dreams. How glorious he was; how noble!
As she lay watching, a glow stole over the brow of the white giant; the green of the nearer ones grew warmer; the sun was going down, and the world was turning to rose and gold. A level shaft flamed through the window and fell on Honor’s bed, lighting up the quilt. “Look!” it seemed to say. “This too is wonderful!”
It certainly was; heaviest linen, so covered with embroidery that the groundwork could hardly be seen. All in white; yet with a bewildering variety about it, somehow. Looking closer, Honor saw that it was divided into five compartments, a round one in the centre, the others fitting into it. The centre-piece displayed the sun, moon and stars, beautifully wrought in shining linen. In one of the others were delicate shapes of Alpine flowers, so lovely that one hardly missed the color. Another held ferns and mosses, while a third was covered with birds, in full flight or perched on twig and bough. The fourth—at first Honor thought it was entirely empty, but soon she spied in one corner a bit of work, evidently the beginning of a design. She was puzzling over it when a sudden whiff struck her nostrils, a pungent, aromatic whiff which made her exclaim unconsciously, “Oh, how hungry I am!”
“A la bonne heure!” Gretli stood beaming in the doorway, carrying a tray; on the tray was a blue bowl, steaming, fragrant. “Behold the soup of Mademoiselle! Our mountain air brings the appetite; cream and onions, with a little of our oldest cheese—behold!”