'How can she be a difficulty?'
'Oh, she may think it too soon for them to get married when Mrs. Cusworth died so recently.'
'Then they can postpone the marriage.'
'Fiddle-faddle! Of course not. Always strike whilst the iron is hot. That is edelweiss in your hand, is it? Oh, could you manage to find or get a man to find some quite fresh, for Lambert to present to Janet. It is the correct thing in the Alps. The graceful accompaniment of a declaration.'
'I will try to get some,' said Philip.
'Lambert, you see, will be too much engaged with Janet to go far himself; besides, he is not able to take great exertion. Climbing has a deteriorating effect on the trouser-knees, it makes them baggy. You will get him some?'
'I will go searching for edelweiss when we reach the hospice,' said Philip. To himself he muttered, 'But not for Lambert and Janet.'
CHAPTER XLVIII.
TRAPPED.
For the last hour of the ascent the carriages passed through snow, not continuous, but between walls cut in the avalanches and drifts that had formed in the basins. The air was cold. The ground was so wet through melted snow that Philip and Mrs. Sidebottom and Mdlle. Labarte were obliged to ride. The walls of snow had fallen in here and there, so that the horses were obliged to flounder through. The scenery was bleak and wintry. The ladies shivered. At length the lake was reached in which the Reuss has its source, and a little beyond it the roofs of the hospice and the inn were visible. In ten minutes the shivering party was assembled in the salle-à-manger, which was heated, and was ordering dinner.