And I thought it sensible advice.

September 5th.

The weather after all hasn’t broken. We have had the thunderstorm and the one bad day, and then it cleared up. It didn’t clear up back to heat again—this year there will be no more heat—but to a kind of cool, pure gold. All day yesterday it was clearing up, and towards evening there came a great wind and swept the sky clear during the night of everything but stars; and when I woke this morning there was the familiar golden patch on the wall again, and I knew the day was to be beautiful.

And so it has been, with the snow come much lower down the mountains, and the still air very fresh. Things sparkle; and one feels like some bright bubble of light oneself. Actually even Mrs. Barnes has almost been like that,—has been, for her, astonishingly, awe-inspiringly gay.

‘Ah,’ she said, standing on the terrace after breakfast, drawing in deep draughts of air, ‘now I understand the expression so frequently used in descriptions