The Atlantic Monthly, page 69 by Various Authors
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there,--how they get over the glaciers, and all that. He said that you sometimes came upon great slippery, steep, snow-covered slopes that end short off in a precipice, and that if you stumble or lose your footing as you cross them horizontally, why you go shooting down, and you're gone; that is, but for one little dodge. You have a long walking-pole with a sharp end, you know, and as you feel yourself sliding,--it's as likely as not to be in a sitting posture,--you just take this and ram it into the snow before you, and there you are, stopped. The thing is, of course, to drive it in far enough, so that it won't yield or break; and in any case it hurts infernally to come whizzing down upon this upright pole. But the interruption gives you time to pick yourself up. Well, so it was with me the other day. I stumbled and fell; I slipped, and was whizzing downward; but I just drove in my pole and pulled up short. It nearly tore me in two; but it saved my life." Richard made this speech with one hand leaning on the neck of Gertrude's horse, and the other on his own side, and with his head slightly thrown back and his eyes on hers. She had sat quietly in her saddle, returning his gaze. He had spoken slowly and deliberately; but without hesitation and without heat. "This is not romance," thought Gertrude, "it's reality." And this feeling it was that dictated her reply, divesting it of romance so effectually as almost to make it sound trivial.
"It was fortunate you had a walking-pole," she said.
"I shall never travel without one again."
"Never, at least," smiled Gertrude, "with a companion who has the bad habit of pushing you off the path."
"O, you may push all you like," said Richard. "I give you leave. But isn't this enough about myself?"
"That's as you think."
"Well, it's all I have to say for the present, except that I am prodigiously glad to see you, and that of course you will stay awhile."
"But you have your work to do."
"Dear me, never you mind my work. I've