“Other countries are doubtless necessary, since they exist!” Atli spoke with grave conviction. “But Mademoiselle Honor is also right; no one—no Swiss, at least,—would ever wish to live elsewhere. Without mountains, it is to make life flat, not so? Like a pancake!”
“Speak no ill of pancakes!” cried Gretli merrily. “We are going to have them for supper to-night.”
Atli’s face fell, like that of a disappointed child.
“To-night?” he repeated. “When I shall be away? Gretli, that is ill done!”
“Take courage, dear one!” Gretli replied. “Shalt have them the next night, thou! And who knows,” she added slyly, “what Madelon may have for thee to-night?”
Atli smiled, a little sheepishly; then lifted his glass of whey.
“Let us drink a toast!” he cried; “to our mountains! the home and the heart of the Switzer; the good God’s guard and rampart around the fairest country of the world!”
All drank the toast: as they did so, Honor looked across the plateau at the Dent du Midi, towering in noonday splendor so bright that it dazzled her eyes, and she shaded them with her hand. As she looked, a gleam of still brighter whiteness sprang from the mountain side, flashed downward, and was lost among the dark pines at its foot; a moment after, a sound came to their ears as of distant thunder, or the sea breaking on a rocky shore.
“Ah!” cried Zitli, whose eyes had followed Honor’s. “Our father Mountain replies, he pledges us! To thee again, thou great Beloved!” He waved his glass and tilted it to get the last drop.
“An avalanche!” said Gretli, in reply to Honor’s eager question. “Often they seem to answer us, our beloved mountains. It may be chance, as brother Atli thinks; Zitli, on the other hand—”