e thoughts which the mountains had put into Maida's golden head and
Mamma's (now) auburn one were so characteristic of the heads themselves
that I chuckled with glee, and our two men glanced round questioningly.
But in accordance with Mamma's simile, to explain to them would have
been like explaining to the mountains themselves.

By and by, though still going up, we were on snow level. Snow lay white
as Maida's thoughts on either side of the steep road, but _le corse_ had
run shrieking farther down the mountain, and was not at home in its own
high house. We were less cold than we had been; and when presently the
worst of the zigzags were past and a great black tunnel-mouth in sight
to show we'd reached the _col_, the sun was almost warm. A few moments
more, and (on our second best speed, with all five on board) we had shot
into that great black mouth.

I always thought that we had the longest and biggest of everything in
our country, but I never heard of a tunnel like this in America.

It was the queerest thing to look into I ever saw.

The lamps of our automobile which Mr. Barrymore had stopped to light
before plunging in, showed us a long, long, straight passage cut through
the mountain, with an oval roof arched like an egg. Except for a few
yards ahead, where the way was lit up and the arch of close-set stones
glimmered grey, the blackness would have been unbroken had it not been
for the tunnel-lights. They went on and on in a sparkling line as far as
our eyes could reach; and if the most famous whale in the world had had
a spine made of diamonds, Jonah would have got much the same effect that
we did as he wandered about in the dark trying to get his bearings.

It was only the most distant electric lamps that looked as if they were
diamonds stuck close together along the roof. The near ones were balls
of light under swaying umbrellas of ink-black shadow; and sometimes we
would flash past great sharp stalactites, which were, as Maida said,
like Titanesses' hatpins stuck through from the top of the mountain.

At first the tunnel road was inches thick with white dust; then, much to
our surprise, we ran into a track of greasy mud which made our car waltz
as it had in the Roya valley close to the precipice.

"It's the water filtering in through the holes your Titanesses' hatpins
have made in their big pincushion," explained Mr. Barrymore, who had
heard Maida make that remark. And the hateful creatures had so
honeyco