Nobody

"I don't suppose you hold her principles," said Tom, indicating Loisrather awkwardly by the pronoun rather than in any more definite way."You never used."

"Quite true; I never used. But I do it now."

"Do you mean that you have given up drinking wine?"

"I have given it up?" said Philip, smiling at Tom's air, which wasalmost of consternation.

"Because she don't like it?"

"I hope I would give up a greater thing than that, if she did not likeit," said Philip gravely. "This seems to me not a great thing. But thereason you suppose is not my reason."

"If the reason isn't a secret, I wish you'd mention it; Mrs. Carutherswill be asking me in private, by and by; and I do not like her to askme questions I cannot answer."

"My reason is, – I think it does more harm than good."

"Wine?"

"Wine, and its congeners."

"Take a cup of coffee, Mr. Caruthers," said Lois; "and confess it willdo instead of the other thing."

Tom accepted the coffee; I don't think he could have rejected anythingshe held out to him; but he remarked grumly to Philip, as he took it, —

"It is easy to see where you got your principles!"

"Less easy than you think," Philip answered. "I got them from no livingman or woman, though I grant you, Lois showed me the way to them. I gotthem from the Bible, old friend."

Tom glared at the speaker.

"Have you given up your cigars too?"

Mr. Dillwyn laughed out, and Lois said somewhat exultantly,

"Yes, Mr. Caruthers."

"I am sure I wish you would too!" said Tom's wife deploringly to herhusband. "I think if anything's horrid, it's the after smell oftobacco."

"But the first taste of it is all the comfort a fellow gets in thisworld," said Tom.

"No fellow ought to say that," his friend returned.

"The Bible!" Tom repeated, as if it were a hard pill to swallow.

"Philip Dillwyn quoting that old authority!"

"Perhaps I ought to go a little further, and say, Tom, that my quotingit is not a matter of form. I have taken service in the Christian army, since I saw you the last time. Now tell me how you and Mrs. Carutherscome to be at the top of this pass in a snow-storm on the sixteenth ofJune?"

"Fate!" said Tom.

"We did not expect to have a snow-storm, Mr. Dillwyn," Mrs. Caruthersadded.

"But you might," said Philip. "There have been snow-storms everywherein Switzerland this year."

"Well," said Tom, "we did not come for pleasure, anyhow. Never shoulddream of it, until a month later. But Mrs. Caruthers got word that aspecial friend of hers would be at Zermatt by a certain day, and beggedto meet her; and stay was uncertain; and so we took what was said to bethe shortest way from where the letter found us. And here we are."

"How is the coffee, Mr. Caruthers?" Lois asked pleasantly. Tom lookedinto the depths of his coffee cup, as if it were an abstraction, andthen answered, that it was the best coffee he had ever had inSwitzerland; and upon that he turned determinately to Mr. Dillwyn andbegan to talk of other things, unconnected with Switzerland or thepresent time. Lois was fain to entertain Tom's wife. The two women hadlittle in common; nevertheless Mrs. Caruthers gradually warmed underthe influence that shone upon her; thawed out, and began even to enjoyherself. Tom saw it all, without once turning his face that way; and hewas fool enough to fancy that he was the only one. But Philip saw ittoo, as it were without looking; and delighted himself all the while inthe gracious sweetness, and the tender tact, and the simple dignity ofunconsciousness, with which Lois attended to everybody, ministered toeverybody, and finally smoothed down even poor Mrs. Caruthers' ruffledplumes under her sympathizing and kindly touch.

"How soon will you be at Zermatt?" the latter asked. "I wish we couldtravel together! When do you expect to get there?"

"O, I do not know. We are going first, you know, to the AEggischhorn.We go where we like, and stay as long as we like; and we never knowbeforehand how it will be."

"But so early! – "

"Mr. Dillwyn wanted me to see the flowers. And the snow views are grandtoo; I am very glad not to miss them. Just before you came, I had one.The clouds swept apart for a moment, and gave me a wonderful sight of agorge, the wildest possible, and tremendous rocks, half revealed, and achaos of cloud and storm."

"Do you like that?"

"I like it all," said Lois, smiling. And the other woman looked, with afascinated, uncomprehending air, at the beauty of that smile.

"But why do you walk?"

"O, that's half the fun," cried Lois. "We gain so a whole world ofthings that other people miss. And the walking itself is delightful."

"I wonder if I could walk?" said Mrs. Caruthers enviously. "How far canyou go in a day? You must make very slow progress?"

"Not very. Now I am getting in training, we can do twenty or thirtymiles a day with ease."

"Twenty or thirty miles!" Mrs. Caruthers as nearly screamed aspoliteness would let her do.

"We do it easily, beginning the day early."

"How early? What do you call early?"

"About four or five o'clock."

Mrs. Caruthers looked now as if she were staring at a prodigy.

"Start at four o'clock! Where do you get breakfast? Don't you havebreakfast? Will the people give you breakfast so early? Why, they wouldhave to be up by two."

Tom was listening now. He could not help it.

"O, we have breakfast," Lois said. "We carry it with us, and we stop atsome nice place and take rest on the rocks, or on a soft carpet ofmoss, when we have walked an hour or two. Mr. Dillwyn carries ourbreakfast in a little knapsack."

"Is it nice?" enquired the lady, with such an expression of doubt andscruple that the risible nerves of the others could not stand it, andthere was a general burst of laughter.

"Come and try once," said Lois, "and you will see."

"If you do not like such fare," Philip went on, "you can almost alwaysstop at a house and get breakfast."