ced him continually through and through. It
was terrible! He was constantly getting into positions of danger--going
out on ledges to obtain particular views, rolling his large eyes,
pulling off his hat and tossing back his long hair, so as to drink in
more thoroughly the beauties around him, and clambering up precipices to
fetch down bunches of wild flowers when Nita chanced to express the most
distant allusion to, or admiration of, them.

"He will leave his bones in one crevasse!" growled Antoine, on seeing
him rush to a point of vantage, and, for the fiftieth time, squat down
to make a rapid sketch of some "exquisite bit" that had taken his fancy.

"'Tis of no use," he said, on returning to his friends, "I cannot
sketch. The beauties around me are too much for me."

He glanced timidly at Nita, who looked at him boldly, laughed, and
advised him to shut his eyes, so as not to be distracted with such
beauties.

"Impossible; I cannot choose but look. See," he said, pointing backward
to their track, "see what a lovely effect of tender blue and yellow
through yonder opening--"

"D'you mean Gillie?" asked Lewis, with a quiet grin, as that reckless
youth suddenly presented his blue coat and yellow buttons in the very
opening referred to.

The laugh called forth by this was checked by the voice of Captain
Wopper, who was far in advance shouting to them to come on.

A few minutes more, and the whole party stood on the Montanvert beside
the small inn which has been erected there for the use of summer
tourists, and from which point the great glacier broke for the first
time in all its grandeur, on their view.

Well might Emma and Nita stand entranced for some time, unable to find
utterance to their feelings, save in the one word--wonderful! Even
Slingsby's mercurial spirit was awed into silence, for, straight before
them, the white and frozen billows of the Mer de Glace stretched for
miles away up into the gorges of the giant hills until lost in and
mingled with the clouds of heaven.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

The Pursuit of Science under Difficulties.

After the first burst of enthusiasm and interest had abated, the
attention of the party became engrossed in the proceedings of the
Professor, who, with his assistants, began at once to adjust his
theodolite, and fix stakes in the ice. While he was thus engaged,
Captain Wopper regarded the Mer de Glace with a gaze of fixedness so
intense as to draw on him the attenti