He had been nurtured tenderly in the society of
ladies; his heart was large and soft; he regarded the sofa-cushion
as a bed-rook necessary of existence. Though about the size of a
sheep, he loved to sit in ladies' laps; he never said a bad word in
all his blameless days; and if he had seen a flute, I am sure he
could have played upon it by nature. It may seem hard to say it of
a dog, but Chuchu was a tame cat.
The king and queen, the grand duke, and a basket of cold provender
for immediate use, set forth from Calistoga in a double buggy; the
crown prince, on horseback, led the way like an outrider. Bags and
boxes and a second-hand stove were to follow close upon our heels
by Hanson's team.
It was a beautiful still day; the sky was one field of azure. Not
a leaf moved, not a speck appeared in heaven. Only from the summit
of the mountain one little snowy wisp of cloud after another kept
detaching itself, like smoke from a volcano, and blowing southward
in some high stream of air: Mount Saint Helena still at her
interminable task, making the weather, like a Lapland witch.
By noon we had come in sight of the mill: a great brown building,
half-way up the hill, big as a factory, two stories high, and with
tanks and ladders along the roof; which, as a pendicle of Silverado
mine, we held to be an outlying province of our own.
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