. General had no opinions. Her way of forming a mind was to prevent it
from forming opinions. She had a little circular set of mental grooves or rails
on which she started little trains of other people's opinions, which never
overtook one another, and never got anywhere. Even her propriety could not
dispute that there was impropriety in the world; but Mrs. General's way of
getting rid of it was to put it out of sight, and make believe that there was no
such thing. This was another of her ways of forming a mind - to cram all
articles of difficulty into cupboards, lock them up, and say they had no
existence. It was the easiest way, and, beyond all comparison, the properest.
    Mrs. General was not to be told of anything shocking. Accidents, miseries,
and offences, were never to be mentioned before her. Passion was to go to sleep
in the presence of Mrs. General, and blood was to change to milk and water. The
little that was left in the world, when all these deductions were made, it was
Mrs. General's province to varnish. In that formation process of hers, she
dipped the smallest of brushes into the largest of pots, and varnished the
surface of every object that came under consideration. The more cracked it was,
the more Mrs. General varnished it.
    There was varnish in Mrs. General's voice, varnish in Mrs. General's touch,
an atmosphere of varnish round Mrs. General's figure. Mrs. General's dreams
ought to have been varnished - if she had any - lying asleep in the arms of the
good Saint Bernard, with the feathery snow falling on his house-top.
 

                                  Chapter III

                                  On the Road.

The bright morning sun dazzled the eyes, the snow had ceased, the mists had
vanished, the mountain air was so clear and light that the new sensation of
breathing it was like the having entered on a new existence. To help the
delusion, the solid ground itself seemed gone, and the mountain, a shining waste
of immense white heaps and masses, to be a region of cloud floating between the
blue sky above and the earth far below.
    Some dark specks in the snow, like knots upon a little thread, beginning at
the convent door and winding away down the descent in broken lengths which were
not yet pieced together, showed where the Brethren were at work in several
places clearing the track. Already the snow had begun to be foot-thawed again
about the door. Mules were busily brought
