306 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
before the door of a chalet and asked leave of the mis- 
tress who was standing outside to rest a little there. 
She led me along the shaky floor of one of those 
low-roofed balconies so characteristic of mountain 
chalets, offered me a rough seat (which at the moment 
was as delicious as a stuffed arm-chair), and brought 
me a cup of milk. I drank a little and then put it 
down simply because I did not think it wise, heated 
as I was, to drink the whole at once. Evidently 
she thought I found the cup too coarse, for she took 
it up (I was dreadfully afraid she was going to take 
it away) and brought the milk back in a little glass 
tumbler, to my great relief — not that I minded 
the cup, but I was very loath to relinquish the 
milk. While I sipped it she sat down on the door 
sill and sewed. Her work consisted in embroidering 
the most hideous coarse bags, one of which I bought 
to show my gratitude for her hospitality, and my 
sympathy with her poverty. She took me into her 
little home, where she lived, so far as I could make 
out, with an only child, a boy of seven or eight. To 
make my story what it should be, that home ought 
to have been as neat as it was ill-supplied with the 
necessities of life. Truth compels me to state that 
its dirt equalled its poverty. But the misery was 
unmistakable and so, ugly as it was, I was glad to buy 
my bag as an excuse for giving her a little lift out 
of her difficulties by paying more than her work was 
worth. 
On the afternoon of the same day we drove to a 
superb view, called the Belvedere, to see the sunset 
