But this mountain
grandeur pleased him. These quiet solitudes led him upward. The
glorious diadem of the hills was always urging him onward. Hard and
self-denying as his life, he had ample recompense in daily, hourly
communion with the Father through the majesty of his works."
"I should like to live where I could see all this," whispered Carry.
"The heart that loves, finds beauty and grandeur everywhere,"
responded uncle Paul; "not only the mountain passes, but the valleys
echo His praise, and there are few places so sterile but human lives
abound."
"Griselda and Thorwald, have you seen them since?" asked Carry.
"Ten years afterwards, I saw them. Griselda was a tall stately girl,
with blue laughing eyes, and curls of pale brown, and Thorwald was a
student at Geneva. Pastor Ortler was still the same, preaching to his
little flock, and giving freely of his means, his wife only slightly
older. Once more we wandered over the heights and in the valleys, the
spots where I lingered years before, plucking a flower and drinking
from the cold glacier water. Afterward, when it became necessary for
me to return, good pastor Ortler and his wife went with me, and
together we passed a winter in Milan."
"And Griselda?" asked Carry.
"Oh, uncle Paul, Griselda was"--and Carry glanced up at the portrait
of a young and beautiful woman hanging in a niche on the left-hand of
the fireplace. Uncle Paul's portrait occupied the other side.
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