"IN A CHALET."

Madame Gilet, Champfleuri, Switzerland, to Mrs.
Jones, Hosier, London.

Y DEAR SISTER,-Are you not surprised at the
address given at the top of my paper? And

M

do you not want to know how we managed to leave Geneva in these early summer days, which are generally our busiest time? Well, I must begin and tell you. The children took measles as you know, and though they got through them pretty well, they never seemed to recover their former health, and at last my husband said he would not have four such pasty-faced little things round his table any longer. They wanted change of air, he declared, and he went off to the office with such a determined look on his face, that I knew something would come of it. Sure enough, when he returned in the evening, he tossed baby up in his arms, and said he should soon have his roses back, for he was bound for Champfleuri, the next day but one! What creatures men are, to be sure! Settling everything in a minute, never thinking of the awkwardness of getting four children ready for a journey just at the beginning of the summer with all last year's suits too small for them, and new ones not yet, made. However, when my husband settles a thing it has to be, and I too was glad to get the children into fresh air, so we managed somehow, and to cut a long story short, we reached this place a week ago.

(234)

Α

This place! oh, my dear sister, I wish I could give you an idea what those two little words really mean. Everything round is so lovely, so grand, so overpoweringly beautiful, that after the first rush of pleasure at the sight, the tears filled my eyes to think that you should not have a glimpse of this delightful corner of the world.

Does it not seem strange, dear Fanny, that after being together all our childhood, when we both felt that we cared for nothing unless we could enjoy it together, that we should marry, and live such utterly different lives? I, the wife of a Geneva banker's clerk, and you the wife of a London tradesman. Sometimes it makes me quite sad to think how far apart we have drifted, and yet I know very well that the same God is leading us each, though by different paths, to His one home. But just now my path is such a lovely one, that I feel quite selfish, to be enjoying the snow-white mountains, and flowery fields and roaring waterfalls of this place, whilst you have only the dusty noisy London streets for your share. I do indeed long for you to be here with me, but as that cannot be, I am going to make my weekly letter as chatty as possible, and I shall try and tell you everything we see, and hear, and do, so that you may at least enjoy the description as you may not have the sight of all our pleasures. First of all then, let me describe our châlet-but, perhaps, you do not even know what I mean by châlet? It is the Swiss word for the houses built among the mountains. Ours is made entirely of wood, as indeed nearly all are, there being so many trees in Switzerland that wood is cheap. The house is even tiled with wooden tiles, and to keep this roof firm, huge pieces of rock are placed at intervals along the tiles. The châlet stands in the middle of a sloping field of grass, soon to be cut for hay; but no English hay-field ever was like this one, and I feel almost hopeless when I try to say how bright and glow

ing the colours are. The grass is thickly interspersed with flowers of the brightest red, and yellow, and blue, and all so straight and tall that each separate flower seems as if it wished to force itself on your notice; and then the mountains, can I make you see them as I see them? Try to imagine a mountain rising to the clouds, higher far than ten St. Paul's cathedrals, placed one on the top of each other, and then think of the many different peaks, each crowned with the everlasting snows. The lower slopes are covered with emerald green grass, and lower still with dark pine woods, or with more green pastures, on which cows feed, and dotted here and there are the herdsmen's châlets. This is our view, and you will not be surprised to hear that for the first few hours I felt as if merely to look at it were all the pleasure I wanted.

We enter our châlet by a steep footpath from the high road, and are at once in the kitchen, rather a dark room, I must confess; but that really signifies but little here, for except the actual cooking, which of course must take place. at the stove, the rest of the work is nearly all done out of doors. Just outside the kitchen door is our fountain, or trough of running water; our household treasure I call it, for it seems to be useful on every possible occasion. It is there the saucepans are scoured as bright as possible, with a pinch or two of the mould taken from the field alongside; it is there the glasses are rinsed, and the potatoes washed; and chiefest of all, it is there, in the long wooden trough shaped out of the trunk of a pine tree, that the family wash takes place on Monday mornings. Of course, some of the linen has to be brought into the house to be boiled, but the Swiss use cold water for washing far more than we do in Old England, and yet manage to get the linen beautifully white; that is no doubt a good deal owing to the sweet fresh air, and the hot sun in which it is dried and bleached at one