They were climbing higher and higher across an endless plateau, and at
last a voice called from the back, "We must look at the map." It was a
voice of doubt and distrust that any road could be right road which
held so much discomfort.
Fanny stopped and pulled her map from behind her back, where she was
keeping it dry. "It's all right," she showed them, leaning over the back
and holding the map towards them. Then she discovered that the back seat
was empty, and her clients were huddled among the petrol tins and rugs
upon the floor.
"You must be miserable! It's so much colder in the back. See, here's the
big road that we must avoid, going off into Luxembourg, and here's ours,
running downhill in another mile."
They believed her, being too cramped and miserable to take more than a
querulous interest. In another half-hour the snow ceased, and as they
glided down the long hill on the other side of the plateau in a bed of
fresh, unruffled wool, the sun struck out with a suddenness that seemed
to tear the sky in two, and turned the blue snow into a sheet of light
which stretched far below them into a country of pine woods and pits of
shadow. Down, down they ran, till just below lay a village--if village
it was when only a house or two were gathered together for company in
the forest.
The snow seemed to have lain here for days, for the car slipped and
skidded at the steep entrance, where the boys of the village had made
slides for their toboggans.
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