"Tell us, uncle Paul; you know you promised us;" and Carry slid her
arms about her uncle's neck, and felt his great heart beat against her
own.
"It was a long time ago," began uncle Paul. "I had just finished my
studies, and not being strong, the physician advised a year's travel
on the continent. My father was a merchant, and had friends in the
different European cities, and there was little danger that I should
lack for attention; and with a supply of letters, and one in
particular to a friend of my father's, a pastor among the mountains
of Switzerland, I started. I pass over the leave-taking; finding
myself alone on the sea; the nights of calm when leaning over the
ship's side, looking down into the dark depths, murmuring snatches of
home songs, bringing up vividly before me faces of those I loved; and
as the ocean swells came rocking under us, down we went into the
valleys and up over the hills of water. I felt as safe, rocked in the
great cradle of the deep, as when at home. His eye was upon me; His
arm encircled me.
"But pleasant as the voyage and full of memories, I see that you are
impatient to pass over to the mountains of Switzerland. Words are weak
to describe the magnificence of the Juras: looking upon the rolling
heights shrouded with pine-trees, and down thousands of feet at the
very roadside, upon cottage roofs and emerald valleys, where the deer
herds were feeding quietly. All this I had seen, and then we came to a
little town called Bex; and here, from too much expenditure of
enthusiasm perhaps, I was confined for weeks with a raging fever.
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