"Holy Virgin!" she whispered, "don't lisp a word of what you heard me say, and don't ask me about it, either." They rode on side by side up the slope of the mountain.

Blanka was in high spirits.

The turf was silvered with hoar frost, except here and there where the direct rays of the sun had melted it and exposed the grass beneath, which looked all the greener by contrast.

A stately grove received the travellers.

A silence as of some high-arched cathedral reigned, broken occasionally by the antiphony of feathered songsters in the trees overhead.