OVER THE SIMPLON PASS 



WE agreed, my wife and I, that the 

 couple whom we saw for the first 

 time in the post-office at Domo 

 d'Ossoli and a little later met in 

 the gathering room at the hotel, 

 would be well worth knowing. 

 They were, evidently, not only husband and 

 wife, but good chums, thoroughly congenial, and 

 rejoicing in each other's companionship. That 

 they were intelligent no one could doubt, and they 

 radiated kindliness and courtesy. They were 

 dressed for roughing it, and we were prepared for 

 the remark of the gentleman, made to a by-stander, 

 that they had been spending a week in mountain 

 climbing in the neighbourhood. When he added 

 that they would cross into the Rhone Valley by dili- 

 gence on the morrow, we were conscious of a dis- 

 tinctly pleasant sensation at the thought that, for 



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