evening, and
immediately after dinner the Beverleys made their way to the station. It
would be a thirty-eight hour journey, and they had engaged two sleeping
compartments, _wagon-lits_ as they are called on the Continental
express. Mrs. Beverley and Irene were to share one, and Mr. Beverley and
Vincent the other. The beds were arranged like berths on board ship, and
Irene, who occupied the upper one, found, much to her amusement, a
little ladder placed in readiness for her climb aloft.

"I don't need to use _that_!" she exclaimed, scrambling up with the
agility gained in her school gymnasium. "How silly of the conductor to
put it for me."

"How could the poor man tell who was to occupy the berth! You might have
been a fat old lady for anything he knew!" replied Mrs. Beverley,
settling herself on the mattress below.

It was a funny sensation to lie in bed in the jolting train, and Irene
slept only in snatches, waking frequently to hear clanking of chains,
shrieking of engines, shouting of officials at stations, and other
disturbing noises. As dawn came creeping through the darkness she drew
the curtain aside and looked from the window. What a glorious sight met
her astonished gaze! They were passing over the Alps, and all around
were immense snow-covered mountains, great gorges full of dark fir
forests, and rushing streams of green glacier water. It was very cold,
and she was glad to pull her rug up, and later to drink the hot coffee
which the _conducteur_ made on a spirit-lamp in the corridor and brought
to those who had ordered it overnight.

Irene never forgot that long journey on the Continental express. The
sleeping compartments became sitting-rooms by day, for the berths turned
into sofas, and a table was unfolded, where it would have been possible
to write or sew if she had wished. She could do nothing, however, but
stare at the landscape; the snow-capped mountains and the great ravines
and gorges were a revelation in the way of scenery, and it was enough
occupation to look out of the window. Switzerland and Northern Italy
were a dream of wild, rugged beauty, but she woke on the following
morning to find the train racing among olive groves and orange trees,
and to catch glimpses of gay, unknown, wild flowers blooming on the
railway banks. Here and there were stretches of the blue Mediterranean;
and oxen and goats in the fields gave a vivid foreign aspect to the
country. Everything--trees, houses, landscape, a