herself in the forms and hues of the morning. In front of her
rose a wall of glacier sheer out of the water and thousands of feet
above the lake, into the clear brilliance of the sky. On either side of
its dazzling whiteness, mountains of rose-coloured rock, fledged with
pine, fell steeply to the water's edge, enclosing and holding up the
glacier; and vast rock pinnacles of a paler rose, melting into gold,
broke, here and there, the gleaming splendour of the ice. The sun, just
topping the great basin, kindled the ice surfaces, and all the
glistening pinks and yellows, the pale purples and blood-crimsons of the
rocks, to flame and splendour; while the shadows of the coolest azure
still held the hollows and caves of the glacier. Deep in the motionless
lake, the shining snows repeated themselves, so also the rose-red rocks,
the blue shadows, the dark buttressing crags with their pines. Height
beyond height, glory beyond glory--from the reality above, the eye
descended to its lovelier image below, which lay there, enchanted and
insubstantial, Nature's dream of itself.

The sky was pure light; the air pure fragrance. Heavy dews dripped from
the pines and the moss, and sparkled in the sun. Beside Elizabeth, under
a group of pines, lay a bed of snow-lilies, their golden heads
dew-drenched, waiting for the touch of the morning, waiting, too--so she
thought--for that Canadian poet who will yet place them in English verse
beside the daffodils of Westmoreland.

She could hardly breathe for delight. The Alps, whether in their Swiss
or Italian aspects, were dear and familiar to her. She climbed nimbly
and well; and her senses knew the magic of high places. But never surely
had even travelled eyes beheld a nobler fantasy of Nature than that
composed by these snows and forests of Lake Louise; such rocks of opal
and pearl; such dark gradations of splendour in calm water; such
balanced intricacy and harmony in the building of this ice-palace that
reared its majesty above the lake; such a beauty of subordinate and
converging outline in the supporting mountains on either hand; as though
the Earth Spirit had lingered on his work, finishing and caressing it in
conscious joy.

And in Elizabeth's heart, too, there was a freshness of spring; an
overflow of something elemental and irresistible.

Yet, strangely enough, it was at that moment expressing itself in
regret and compunction. Since the dawn, that morning, she had been
unable to sle