10 CHRISTMAS IN SWITZERLAND.

people around, by which means he earned enough to keep
the pot boiling.

His only companion was his little granddaughter, who was
everything in the world to him, for he had no other relative
or friend. She was as good a little girl as you will find any-
where, and was very fond of her old grandfather, who, also, was
tenderly attached to her. Every morning she would be up
early enough to light the fire and get his bit of breakfast ready
for him before he went out to his work; and when he was
gone, she would sweep the room, and make the place tidy; and
then, when she had finished, it was
time to get his dinner ready, and
she would prepare it very carefully
and then take it out to him in the
forest in a little basket; and right

glad was the old man to see his

little Marie (for so was the child

called) coming along under the
shady trees. He would listen to her
pretty prattle while he ate his din-
ner; and often she would bring her
knitting out, and sit there, in the fine summer afternoons,
until he had finished his work and they could walk home
together.

It was a pretty sight to see the old man and the young
child walking hand in hand, her large, loving, blue eyes turned
up to his old weather-beaten face, and her little tongue asking
him questions about the forest, and the big world beyond it,
of which he knew but little more than she did; for the old
man had passed nearly all his life in the cottage where he
lived, and the little he knew of the wide world was gathered