e mine glittered merrily, and, apparently, close at hand;
and the stars above shone as Mary had never seen them, so marvellously
large and bright, and the Magellan clouds so white and mysterious. Mr.
Ward came and told her some of the observations made on them by
distinguished travellers; and after an earnest conversation, she sought
her matted bed, with a pleasant feeling on her mind, as if she had been
unusually near Louis's world.

Clear, sharp, and cold was the air next day; the snow-fields glistened
gloriously in the rising sun, and a rose-coloured mist seemed to rise
from them. Rosita was shown the unusual spectacle of hoar frost, and
shiveringly profited by Mary's ample provision of wraps. The
hill-sides were beyond conception desolate and bare. Birds were an
almost unknown race in Peru; and here even green things had departed,
scarcely a tuft of blossom looking out on the face of the red and
purple rock; and the exceeding stillness so awful, that even the
boy-sailor scarce dared to speak above his breath. Rosita began to
repent of having come near so horrible a place; and when she put her
head out of her litter, and beheld herself winding along a ledge
projecting from the face of a sheer precipice, she would have begged to
go back instantly; but her husband spoke in a voice of authority which
subdued her; she drew in her head into her basket-work contrivance, and
had recourse to vows to Sta Rosa of Lima of a chaplet of diamond roses,
if she ever came safely down again.

Mary had made up her mind that they should not have been taken thither
if there were any real danger; and so, though she could have preferred
her mule taking the inner side of the ledge, and was not too happy when
it climbed like a cat, she smiled, and answered all inquiries that she
did not think she ought to be frightened. The region was in general
more stern than beautiful, the clefts between the hills looking so
deep, that it seemed as if an overthrown mountain could hardly fill
them; but now and then came sudden peeps of that wonderful ocean; or
almost under her feet, as if she could throw a stone into it, there
would lie an intensely green valley, shut in with feathering pines, and
the hacienda and grazing llamas dwindled, so that they could have been
taken for a Swiss farm and flocks of sheep.

Not till the middle of the day did they meet the line of mules, and not
until the sunset did they find themselves close before the wonderful