To a young girl love lurks in everything. When she rose, the morning
after her arrival, Mademoiselle de Watteville saw from her bedroom
window the fine expanse of water, from which the light mists rose like
smoke, and were caught in the firs and larches, rolling up and along
the hills till they reached the heights, and she gave a cry of
admiration.
"They loved by the lakes! _She_ lives by a lake! A lake is certainly
full of love!" she thought.
A lake fed by snows has opalescent colors and a translucency that
makes it one huge diamond; but when it is shut in like that of les
Rouxey, between two granite masses covered with pines, when silence
broods over it like that of the Savannas or the Steppes, then every
one must exclaim as Rosalie did.
"We owe that," said her father, "to the notorious Watteville."
"On my word," said the girl, "he did his best to earn forgiveness. Let
us go in a boat to the further end; it will give us an appetite for
breakfast."
The Baron called two gardener lads who knew how to row, and took with
him his prime minister Modinier. The lake was about six acres in
breadth, in some places ten or twelve, and four hundred in length.
Rosalie soon found herself at the upper end shut in by the Dent de
Vilard, the Jungfrau of that little Switzerland.
"Here we are, Monsieur le Baron," said Modinier, signing to the
gardeners to tie up the boat; "will you come and look?"
"Look at what?" asked Rosalie.
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