The Queen of Sheba and my Cousin the Colonel by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

The mist was still lingering in the valleys, though the remote peaks / had been kindled more than an hour by the touch of sunrise. As Lynde / paced up and down the trottoir in front of the Couronne hotel, he drew / out his watch from time to time and glanced expectantly towards the / hotel entrance. In the middle of the street stood a couple of guides, / idly holding the bridles of three mules, two of which were furnished / with side-saddles. It was nearly half an hour past the appointment, and / the Denhams, who had retired at eight o'clock the night before in order / to be fresh for an early start up the mountain, had made no sign. Lynde / himself had set the lark an example that morning by breakfasting by / candle-light. Here were thirty minutes lost. He quickened his pace up / and down in front of the hotel, as if his own rapidity of movement / would possibly exert some occult influence in hastening the loiterers; / but another quarter of an hour dragged on without bringing them.

Lynde was impatiently consulting his watch for the twentieth time when / Miss Denham's troubled face showed itself in the doorway.