Mr. Wyndham was a
gentleman of refined manners; a Christian man, loving God, and
speaking of that love with the earnestness of one who wishes others to
love Him also. His daughter Alice, a frail, gentle girl, was one of
those beings that seem lent, not given; the last of a large family,
and herself not strong. Her father brought her to Lausanne, hoping
that pure air and change of scene would restore and invigorate her. I
hardly know why, but certain it is that my father was never so much
interested in travellers before; while from the first it seemed to me
that I could never do enough for the gentle girl, who never failed to
inspire me with the love of something beyond what I knew. It was not a
tangible idea, and when I tried to reach it I could not. Often in
going up the mountain we would stop and rest on some shelf of the
rock, while Alice would take her Bible from her pocket, and read the
beautiful descriptions of the majesty and glory of the mountain
heights, their grandeur and splendor, and then of the great God,
creator and ruler of the universe, and kneeling in the cleft of the
rock, she would commit herself to him with such a sweet, childlike
confidence, I used to weep without knowing what I was weeping for,
wishing and longing that I could understand for myself. Whenever she
read, and especially when she prayed, my father would listen
attentively, taking care when we went home to say nothing about it.
[Illustration]
"I remember one day we had been to 'Le Jardin,' a little spot of green
at the foot of the grand Jarasse, framed in with eternal snows, but
itself covered with Alpine plants and flowers, and yielding herbage
sufficient to tempt the herdsmen to drive their cattle across the Mer
de Glace.
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