After breakfast, which Annette insisted that I should take, I walked down to the inn, and there learned more of Franz than he had been willing to tell me.  Not only had he been the means of leading his father to the Saviour, but it was his habit to gather the people together and read to them out of his Bible, telling them of Jesus and of his pure and spotless life, then of his agony and death, picturing his love and his infinite tenderness.

I was not restricted to a set number of days, and for three days I vibrated between the inn and the small cottage on the mountain.  On the fourth it was over; the messenger had done his bidding.  Franz and Annette were not the only mourners, not a villager but joined them; and when they turned from the grave to the silence of their humble room, I went with them.

Not many days after that the door of the cottage was shut; and when I sailed for my western home, Franz Muller was prosecuting his studies at Basle.

“He is to be a minister,” said Annette, as she followed me to the door, “and he says that wherever his work is, I may share it with him.”

Her face was lit up with a smile almost as bright as I had seen on Franz’s face.  Surely the angels know nothing of the rapture of such a work.

Mont Blanc.

After making the ascent of Montanvert, and learning something of the wonders of the Mer de Glace, we again sallied forth upon a tour of discovery in the immediate neighborhood of La Prieure.

With Mont Blanc before me and hardly conscious that I was alone, I pursued my walk, continuing to ascend till my path was obstructed by a mass of fallen snow.  Fascinated with the idea of a better view, I determined to find a way around it, I climbed higher and higher, now stopping to admire the interior domes and spires and pyramids that cluster in this wondrous region, then fancying myself in a vast cathedral more grand and magnificent than I had ever before seen.  The summit of Mont Blanc seemed to have greatly increased since I began to ascend, and this, and not looking behind me, rendered me wholly unconscious of the progress I made.

At length, from the slippery condition of the path and the frequent use that I was obliged to make of the pole with which I had been furnished, I became conscious that I had advanced far beyond what I had at first purposed.  Looking back, I could see nothing of the valley; night was coming on, and the winds sweeping over the snowy heights made me shiver; at the same time they threatened to hurl me over the precipice.  Go on I could not; to retrace my steps seemed equally impossible; planting my pole with its long spike deep in the ice, I attempted to keep my footing.  Sending my eyes in every direction, and hoping that the guides had missed me and followed in the track, I perceived an immense mass of ice, one of the very turrets that I had so greatly admired, trembling and just ready to fall.  Before I had time to think, it slipped and fell with a thundering sound, rolling and dashing like a huge cataract of liquid silver, glittering in the sunbeams, and spent itself on the surface below over which it spread.  Its roar, like that of thunder, reverberated from peak to peak, and many seconds elapsed before it completely died away.