passion; "Cuthbert's hobby" it was dubbed by acquaintances, who could eke out delight from Leamington and Cheltenham.
Profiting by the leisure afforded me during successive seasons, I had become tolerably familiar with the Alps; with what exquisite and inexhaustible enjoyment I am not going here to trouble you. But August had come round again. The knapsack was stitched, where it wanted mending. The Alpenstock was dragged to light, from the lumber-room. The thick-soled gaiter-boots were freshly studded with hobnails. The well-worn Swiss map was conned over once more, and a new route, leading over yet untrodden passes, was set down in the Autumnal programme.
Suddenly I changed my mind--under the influence of an hour's talk with an enthusiastic mountaineer-- who had, during the previous season, explored the Pyrenees. "You may not find," said he, "quite so much grandeur; but the valleys are decidedly more picturesque, the foliage more varied, the very tints of the mountains glowing with warmer colours." Thereupon, a change of plan and passport. Behold me at Cauterets in France, instead of at Grindelwald in Switzerland!
Were my object merely to fill a certain number of pages, I might here descant at length upon the comparative beauties of the Alps and the Pyrenees--the latter having, at present, the advantage of not being done to death by tourists. But I will abstain. I will speak only of one day's adventure; the day whereon, for the third and last time, I found myself associated with Mary Verner.
Cauterets may be a pleasant place enough to those who bathe in, or imbibe for medicinal purposes, the mineral waters that have made its fame. It is finely placed too, pitched in, as it were, into a nook, with lofty peaks and fringes of fir forests over-topping its somewhat formal streets. It does not, however, offer much attraction to the connoisseur in fine scenery. One excursion alone is to be made. Its objects are the Pont d'Espagne and the Lac de Gaube. The former is a group of pine trunks bridging a cascade. The latter is a tarn at the foot of the glaciers of the Vignemale, which, you know, is one of the mountain-monarchs hereabouts.
Before proceeding further, I may mention that I am enabled to set down my reminiscences of this particular time and place, by reference to my rough notes penned on the spot, journal-wise. The little memorandum book lies under my hand, with its pages written in ink of various tints, as hotel, or cabaret, or hut furnished the material at the moment. I like to preserve these records. Such _souvenirs_ are the _bonnes fortunes_ of those whose travels are ended. You see that I incline to be sentimental as I draw towards the _dénouement_ of my story.
Heavens and earth, how it rains in the Pyrenees! What a young deluge swept down 

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