ing as new
wine, and the provisions they had brought with them reinvigorated them
completely. To hungry and thirsty climbers black bread and _vin
ordinaire_ taste like nectar and ambrosia. The day was cloudless, the
view unspeakably magnificent, and Cyril's high spirits were contagious.
They lingered long before they began the descent, and laughingly
pooh-poohed the guide's repeated suggestion that it was getting late.

"I bet you Kennedy has been writing poetry," said Cyril; "do make him
read it, Julian."

"Hear, hear!" said all in chorus, and Julian with playful force
possessed himself of the pocket-book, while Kennedy, only asseverating
that the verses were addressed to nobody in particular, fled from the
sound of his own lyrics, which Julian proceeded to read.

"Rose-opals of the sunlit hills
Are flashing round my lonely way,
And cataracts dash the rushing rills
To plumes of glimmering spray.
But mountain-streams and sunny gleams
Are not so dear to me,
As dawning of the golden love
My spirit feels for thee!

"Their diamond crowns and giant forms,
The lordly hills upraise;
Nor rushing winds nor shattering storms
Can shake their solid base:
Though Europe rests beneath their crests,
And empires sleep secure,
Less firm their bases than my love,
Their snow less brightly pure."

"There, rubbish enough," said Kennedy, returning and snatching away the
pocket-book before Julian could read another verse. "`Like coffee made
without trouble, drunk without regret,' as the Monday Oracle, with its
usual exquisite urbanity, observed of a recent poet."

"Of course addressed quite to an imaginary object, Eddy," said Eva,
while Violet looked towards the hills, and hoped that the glow which
covered her fair face might be taken for a reflection of the faint tinge
that already began to fall over the distant ridges of pale snow.

"We really must come away," said Julian; "it'll be sunset very soon, and
then we shall have to climb down nearly in the dark."

So they left the ridge, and while Kennedy and Cyril, amid shouts of
laughter, glissaded gallantly over the slopes of snow, Julian and the
guide conducted the girls by a method less rapid, but more secure.
Arrived at the rocks, Cyril went forward with the guide, Julian followed
with Eva, and Kennedy with Violet led up the rear.

Why did they linger so long? Violet was tired, no doubt, but could she
not have walked as fast as Eva, or was