Mr.  Forest's  house  stood  high  on  the  Grindelwald  side  of
the  Wengern  Alp,  under  a  bare  grassy  height  full  of  pasture
both  summer  and  winter.  In  front  was  a  great  space,  half
meadow,  half  common,  rather  poorly  covered  with  hill-
grasses.  The  rock  was  near  the  surface,  and  in  places  came
through,  when  the  grass  was  changed  for  lichens  and  mosses.
Through  this  rocky  meadow,  now  roamed,  now  rushed,  now
tumbled  one  of  those  Alpine  streams,  the  very  thought  of
whose  ice-  born  plenitude  makes  me  happy  yet.  Its  banks
were  not  abrupt  but  rounded  gently  in,  and  grassy  down  to
the  water's  brink.  The  larger  torrents  of  winter  wore  the
channel  wide,  and  the  sinking  of  the  water  in  summer  let  the
grass  grow  within  it.  But,  peaceful  as  the  place  was,  and
merry  with  the  constant  rush  of  this  busy  stream,  it  had,  even
in  the  hottest  summer  day,  a  memory  of  the  winter  about  it,
a  look  of  suppressed  desolation  ;  for  the  only  trees  upon  it
were  a  score  of  straggling  pines — all  dead,  as  if  blasted  by
lightning  or  smothered  by  snow.  Perhaps  they  were  the  last
of  the  forest  in  that  part,  and  their  roots  had  reached  a
stratum  where  they  could  not  live.  All  I  know  is,  that  there
they  stood,  blasted  and  dead  every  one  of  them.
Charley  could  never  bear  them,  and  even  disliked  the  place
because  of  them.  His  father  was  one  whom  a  mote  in  his
brother's  eye  repelled ;  the  son  suffered  tor  this  in  twenty  ways,
one  of  which  was,  that  a  single  spot  in  the  landscape  was  to
him  enough  to  destroy  the  loveliness  of  exquisite  surroundings.
