“You can trust me, my sister,” he said. “She shall not fall, she shall not make the slightest stumble; as for the goats, I will shut them up in the yard and they shall not come near her.”
[Illustration: “HONOR COULD HARDLY SPEAK HER DELIGHT”]
With many cautions, Gretli consented, and as the boy and girl went out, they saw her take her seat at her embroidery, while Big Pierre drew his chair to her side and sitting down, seemed to shut up his enormous length like a jack-knife.
“‘All persons more than a mile high to leave the court!’” said Honor to herself. “Which way, Zitli?”
Zitli led the way round the corner of the châlet to the north, to a spot she had not seen before. It was a curious nook in an angle of the rock wall. A jutting ledge, just the right height for a seat, was thickly covered with the same beautiful green moss that the girls had found in their rock parlor down below. In the crannies of the rock ferns waved, and delicate harebells nodded. A few feet below a little crystal stream fell, foaming and flashing down the rocks with a silver tinkle. It was a fairy place.
Honor could hardly speak her delight. A murmured “oh!” half under her breath and a glance told Zitli all he wanted to know. The boy’s face fairly shone with pleasure.
“I have kept this for mademoiselle!” he said. “I would not let Gretli show her. It is my own place.”
“It is the most beautiful place I ever saw in my life,” said Honor simply.
“_Tiens!_” said the boy, with his quaint twinkle. “These are very large words, mademoiselle. Nevertheless, I am glad it pleases you. It is my own, do you see? When I was all little, after--after I hunted the chamois, you understand--there was more of pain than anything else for me. I was little, the pain was large. I saw no sense in that. What would you? A child does not understand. I cried, I was not to console. I made much trouble for that good brother and sister. When the pain seemed too large, one of those good ones would bring me here, would set me down, and would say,
“‘My child, behold the glory of God! Behold how it is wide, how it is great, how it is beautiful. Do not let the pain that is in thy body destroy in thy soul the sense of thankfulness!’
“Mademoiselle, that was the chief lesson of my childhood, that I was to be thankful. Since that, all my life I am thankful. I have no more pain, or not often and not great. It is no longer larger than I am. On the contrary, it is small, small, by comparison. I laugh at it! It goes like that!”