s toilsome; and Mildred, taking advantage of a commodious
place, sat down to rest upon the lava. At the altitude which they had
reached the temperature changes,--a cold wintry wind was blowing--and
she had not quite prepared herself for so sudden a change. Winston,
anxious only that the breath of heaven should not visit her too rudely,
and forgetting to ask himself whether there might not be a too familiar
kindness in the act, pulled off a light over-coat which he wore, and,
making the best shawl he could of it, put it over her shoulders. She was
not a little confused at the unaffected anxiety which had evidently
given rise to this prompt attention; and blushed as she refused to rob
him of his own attire. She attempted, by some playful remark, to remove
the feeling of embarrassment which had seized upon both parties.

"But from a poor gentleman," replied Winston, alluding to something that
had passed between them at an earlier part of the day, "any gift may be
safely accepted. Like the priest, he wears a tonsure, which at once
gives him unusual privileges, and reduces him to a subject of
indifference."

Mildred made no answer; but she thought that, in one of these cases, the
tonsure was so little visible, was kept so much out of sight, that it
might fail of its due precautionary influence. She rose, and they
proceeded on their walk, or, rather, their climbing. And now the volume
of smoke which had, for some time, been concealed from view by the
mountain itself, burst upon them, and a few minutes placed them on the
summit. They stood within the crater, or what has been such, for, at
present, the mountain discharges itself through a lofty cone which rises
on one side of this strange, black, sulphurous amphitheatre. All around
them, however, the volcanic vapours were steaming up from innumerable
crevices, and the hot lava pouring out, moving slowly, with a dull red
heat. No need here of further clothing. Their feet were burning where
they stood. They had again exchanged the cold of winter, not for the
heat of summer, but of a furnace.

There is a terrific grandeur in the scene. The black masses of lava,
whose surface, here, is of the hue and texture of cinders, are piled and
jostled together with the utmost irregularity, with deep fissures
between them, in the same manner, though the material is so different,
as the blocks of ice in the glaciers of Mont Blanc. Sometimes these
cindery surfaces undulate and take the appear