Her
movements aroused Christine. They threw aside the cloaks and coats that
covered them, and sat gazing about the place in the confusion that the
novelty of their situation would be likely to produce. All the rest of the
travellers still slumbered; and, arising without noise, they passed the
silent and insensible sleepers, the quiet mules which had stretched
themselves near the entrance of the place, and quitted the hut.
Without, the scene was wintry: but, as is usual in the Alps let what may
be the season, its features of grand and imposing sublimity were prominent
The day was among the peaks above them, while the shades of night still
lay upon the valleys, forming a landscape like that exquisite and poetical
picture of the lower world, which Guido has given in the celebrated
al-fresco painting of Aurora. The ravines and glens were covered with
snow, but the sides of the rugged rocks were bare in their eternal hue of
ferruginous brown. The little knoll on which the Refuge stood was also
nearly naked, the wind having driven the light particles of the snow into
the ravine of the path.
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