GRANDCHILDREN 



doubled up like golden fleeces till their curly heads and 

 their little shoes touched. 



One thing never to be omitted was to watch Monte Rosa 

 at sunset. The night before our departure there was a 

 thunderstorm far, far away in those Alps where Monte 

 Rosa rises in beauty. At every flash, peak beyond peak 

 shone out in distances hitherto wrapped away even from 

 the imagination. 



"Why does the sky do like that?" asked the second 

 boy, vigorously blinking his great eyes. With straight 

 black hair and an odd, serious little countenance, square- 

 jawed and long upper-lipped like a Medici out of Benozzo 

 Gozzoli / s frescoes, he was the most mediaeval-looking of 

 all the children. We loved that four-year-old. ... He has 

 grown up, we hear, "impossible" and a burden to his 

 family. We cannot help feeling it must be the family's fault. 

 The elder boy, much handsomer though he was, did not 

 then promise so well. A terribly nervous child / the cry 

 " Ho paura," was always on his lips. It hurt his grand- 

 father's pride that any son of his race should show such 

 degenerate timidity. 



One typical scene we were witness of. The little fellow, 

 in great awe of the peremptory, loud-voiced old sportsman, 

 approached him to say good-night/ and, hanging his head 

 after the manner of the frightened child, stammered the 

 requisite " Bonsoir, Bonpapa," almost inaudibly. 

 Instantly wrath broke out over him. (Bonpapa's temper 

 had not improved with the gout.) "That was not the 

 manner in which to say good-night."" A man was to 

 look up: to speak straight." "What does one say?" he 

 ended, shouting. 



227 



