“But yet,” added Gretli quickly, seeing Honor’s eyes starry with tears again, “she has not been altogether unhappy, hein, M’lle Honor? And to stay once at the Châlet des Rochers, that is to stay again; it is like that. Mademoiselle will come again in the autumn, is it not so, to see the homecoming of the herd? That is another festival of our mountains, dear to our hearts. Now—a little goûter, is it not so? Before making the descent; a glass of cream, a little honey, a biscuit—hold! that I bring them on the instant!”
There was little packing to do. M’me Madeleine had sent a few necessaries by post, and these were all too quickly made into a neat roll. A basket must be packed, with Honor’s cream cheese for the Ladies’ supper, a bottle of whey and a packet of biscuits in case of hunger or thirst during the journey. While Gretli was bustling about on these matters, chatting the while with her sister of affairs here at the châlet, there at the Maison Madeleine, Honor stole into her little room to say good-by. How homelike it had grown! how she loved the little bed with its four faces smiling from the posts! Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, she named them; they had certainly blessed the bed that she lay on. The carvings on the narrow shelf, Zitli’s work, as she now knew; the windows through which the mountains greeted her so kindly morning, noon and evening, with a new glory for every time of day or night; even the bare walls, with their fresh rough plaster, white as snow, were dearer to her than any imaginable hangings or tapestries of queens’ palaces.
“Good-by!” said Honor softly. “Good-by, dear room! good-by, dear little châlet, and all the tiny cows and goats! I’ll come back to you some day!”
“On the Alp the grass is sweetest,
Li-u-o, my Queen!”
Zitli’s voice sounded clear and sweet from the garden patch where he was working. Honor leaned out of the window. “Zitli, wait!” she cried. “I am going! I am coming!”
Zitli looked up with a twinkle. “How then, Mademoiselle? Coming and going, both at once?”
In another moment Honor had joined him, and with trembling voice and brimming eyes was telling her sad little story. Margoton had come for her. As soon as Atli came from the Alp, she must go; must leave the Châlet des Rochers and go back to the hot, dusty town, to schoolbooks and school talk. How could she bear it?
Zitli’s bright face grew sober; he pondered a moment, leaning on his hoe.
“Sapperli poppette!” he murmured. “This is an apoplexy for us indeed, Mademoiselle.”