The air was delicious with the scent of flowers and shrubs; there were alp-roses everywhere, and purple gentian, and the little iva blossom that has an aromatic smell, and on tiny moss ledges the cold white stars of the edelweiss seemed to be keeping themselves as far above reach as they could.

But she climbed as lightly as a savage woman, and picked them and sat down to look at them in the sunshine.
Just beyond where she rested, the rock narrowed suddenly to a steep pass, within which were dark shadows.

People who do not attempt anything in the way of ascending peaks often wander in that direction in search of edelweiss, but Regina fancied that she was sure to be alone as long as she pleased to stay.
If she had not been sure of that she would not have taken off her left shoe to shake out some tiny thing that had got into it and that annoyed her.

It turned out to be a bit of pine-needle.

It was pleasant to feel her foot freed from the hot leather and resting on the thick moss, and so the other shoe came off too, and was turned upside down and shaken, as an excuse, for there was nothing in it, and both feet rested in the moss, side by side.