"Anything on earth but a gushing American!" retorted Tom, "to go round the world with."
"I wish I could sketch a glacier," bemoaned Adela, stopping every minute or two, as they wound around the bridle path, "but I can't; I've tried ever so many times."
"Wait till we get to the Mer de Glace," advised Tom. "You can sit down in the middle of it, and sketch away all you want to."
"Well, I'm going to," said Adela, with sudden determination. "I don't care; you can all laugh if you want to."
"You can sketch us all," suggested Jasper, "for we shall have horrible old stockings on."
"I sha'n't have horrible old stockings on," said Adela, in a dudgeon, sticking out her foot. "I wear just the same stockings that I do at home, at school in Paris, and they are quite nice."
"Oh, I mean you'll have to put on coarse woollen ones that the peasant women knit on purpose,—we all shall have to do the same, on over our shoes," explained Jasper.
"O dear me!" cried Adela, in dismay.
"And I think we shall slip and slide a great deal worse with those things tied on our feet, than to go without any," said Polly, wrinkling up her brows at the idea.
"'Twouldn't be safe to go without them," said Jasper, shaking his head, "unless we had nails driven in our shoes."