No wonder the Swiss die for their
native valleys! I would if I were they. I asked him about education.
He said his children went to a school kept by Catholic sisters, who
taught reading, writing, and Latin. The dialect of Chamouni is a
patois, composed of French and Latin. He said that provision was very
scarce in the winter. I asked how they made their living when there
were no travellers to be guided up Mont Blanc. He had a trade at which
he wrought in winter months, and his wife did tailoring.
I must not forget to say that the day before there had been some
confidential passages between us, which began by his expressing,
interrogatively, the opinion that "mademoiselle was a young lady, he
supposed." When mademoiselle had assured him, on the contrary, that
she was a venerable matron, mother of a thriving family, then followed
a little comparison of notes as to numbers. Madame he ascertained to
have six, and he had four, if my memory serves me, as it generally
does not in matters of figures. So you see it is not merely among us
New Englanders that the unsophisticated spirit of curiosity exists as
to one's neighbors.
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