She brightened up in conversation. I talked about Piora, which I already
knew, and the _Lago Tom_, the highest of the three lakes. She said she
knew the _Lago Tom_. I said laughingly, "Oh, I have no doubt you do.
We've had many a good day at the _Lago Tom_, I know." She looked down at
once.
In spite of her nearly eighty years she was active as a woman of forty,
and altogether she was a very grand old lady. Her house is scrupulously
clean. While I watched her spinning, I thought of what must so often
occur to summer visitors. I mean what sort of a look-out the old woman
must have in winter, when the wind roars and whistles, and the snow
drives down the valley with a fury of which we in England can have little
conception. What a place to see a snowstorm from! and what a place from
which to survey the landscape next morning after the storm is over and
the air is calm and brilliant. There are such mornings: I saw one once,
but I was at the bottom of the valley and not high up, as at Ronco. Ronco
would take a little sun even in midwinter, but at the bottom of the
valley there is no sun for weeks and weeks together; all is in deep
shadow below, though the upper hill-sides may be seen to have the sun
upon them. I walked once on a frosty winter's morning from Airolo to
Giornico, and can call to mind nothing in its way more beautiful:
everything was locked in frost--there was not a watershed but was sheeted
and coated with ice: the road was hard as granite--all was quiet, and
seen as through a dark but incredibly transparent medium.
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