Albrecht. Bates Arlo
below. Now and then some sudden turn in the way brought them to the crest of an elevation from which they could look far over the wide range of the tree-clad country. Spread before them were the sweeping black forests of pine, broken here and there with patches of ling and heather, as the surface of the ocean may be mottled by lighter spaces that mark where the concealed currents run.
Suddenly, as they turned a corner where the path ran along a rocky hillside, becoming so narrow that they were close together, Erna laid her hand on the arm of her companion.
"Look!" she exclaimed, pointing with the other hand.
Far, far before them, bathed in the golden light of the dying sun, lay the peaks of the Alps. White and pure as crystal the snowy summits rose toward the sky, while lower the slopes were flushed to rosy pink, or dyed to strange and lovely hues of gold and crimson and purple. From a cloud of rainbow colors soared the rosy peaks, fairer than dreams.
Erna checked her horse, and her companion did the same, although he seemed not fully to comprehend her enthusiasm.
"It is like heaven," she sighed. "Only once before in my whole life have I seen the Alps like that; they are not often to be seen from here."
Albrecht did not answer, but gazed upon the distant mountains, as if he were trying to understand why their appearance should affect his companion so strongly. As they gazed, the hues on the sides of the hills deepened; the rose and gold of the peaks faded; the white of the summits seemed to become transparent, as if one could see through them into the sky beyond; and little by little the sharp outline blended with the quickly dimming heaven against which they had stood out in relief. The shadow of the lower world crept upward; and as they stood there the glorious vision vanished. Only an empty sky where the dimness of night was growing lay in the distance before them in place of the beauty they had seen.
"It was like heaven," Erna said again, as she started her palfrey.
"Then," responded her companion, in a tone of deep gravity, "one must have a soul to appreciate it."
She turned and looked at him questioningly; but with one of those quick changes of mood which always seemed to her so surprising in so manly a knight, he burst into a merry laugh, and began in his rich voice to sing a gay hunting-song.
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