nice and brotherly he had been all the way to
town, and since! I do not wonder that Rose enjoyed the journey. Rose!
I might have let her know that I was leaving by the morning train, but
then she would have had to ask for an hour off; and when she has just
been away for ten days her chief might not have liked it. Besides, the
Cynic had such a lot of minute instructions and emphatic warnings to
which I was forced to listen attentively.

Then there was Mother Hubbard, who had been set upon accompanying me on
the ground that I ought not to travel alone and unchaperoned; but the
Cynic agreed with me that at my age chaperonage is unnecessary. I am
not the sort that needs protection; and the little motherkin would
merely have added to my anxieties.

No, though there was a sick and perhaps dying man at the other end, and
though sorrow might soon compass me about, I determined to enjoy the
present moment, and I did. I enjoyed the breeze upon the Channel, the
glimpses of peasant life in France as the train rushed through the flat
and rather tame country, the dinner in the Northern railway station at
Paris, and the novel experience of the tiny bed which was reserved for
my use on the night journey. I was travelling in luxury, of course,
and am never likely to repeat the experience.

But my chief enjoyment was one which could be shared by any who had
eyes to see, though they were sitting upright on the bare and narrow
boards of the miserable third-class compartments which I caught sight
of occasionally in the stations when morning came.

The glory of the dawn! of the sun rising behind the mountains, when a
pink flush spread over the sky, dissolving quickly into rose and amber
and azure, delicately pencilled in diverging rays which spread like a
great fan to the zenith! The crags of a great hill caught the glow,
and the mountain burned with fire. Below, the grass was gold and
emerald; there were fruit-laden trees in the foreground, and in the
distance, away beyond the belt of low-lying mist and the vague neutral
tints which concealed their bases, were the snow mountains! I pushed
down the window and gorged myself with the heavenly vision.

There was no time to see Geneva, but the ride along the banks of the
lake and through the fertile Rhone valley was one long, delightful
dream. Luncheon was provided at Visp, and then began the journey on
the mountain railway which I can never forget.

As the train snorted and grun