nt and delight. All personal troubles were forgotten for a while
as the glorious scenery unfolded to her vision.

Surely her eyes must have been holden when she saw it a year ago!

Heavy mists sweeping the mountain sides frequently obliterated a picture
of purple distances and rugged heights. Anon, there was a blaze of
sunlight revealing wooded spurs with zinc-roofed cottages and grey
villages nestling on their slopes. Green valleys lay at the foot of
frowning precipices, and round many a bend and curve were glimpses of
tea gardens with the bushes laid out in serried rows; and cumbrous,
zinc-roofed tea factories looking strangely incongruous in their wild
and glorious setting.

With a rush of sound, a waterfall would be seen, as a curve was rounded,
tumbling over rocks and rushing under a bridge on its way to join some
mighty river in the plains. The plains were often visible, stretching
like a grey sea to the horizon, their surface marked by the silver
tracery of streams. Now and then, Joyce could catch a glimpse of the
Everlasting Snows, with Kinchin-junga, Nursing, and Pundeem, a mighty
group glittering in the sunlight in stately magnificence, their peaks
inaccessible to man. Beside the road, a stout parapet of boulders
covered by ferns and lichen, stood, in places, between the passengers
and certain death, a thousand feet below; while up the steep banks rose
forests of _sal_ and fir, climbing towards the sky.

Wherever there were homesteads perched among the rocks, children of the
mountains would run forth like sure-footed goats to view the passing
train, their round and ruddy cheeks besmeared with dirt and chapped with
cold; their flat faces, high cheek bones, and slanting eyes, revealing
their Lepcha strain.

And all the while the temperature continued to fall; and the atmosphere
grew moist and cold and exhilarating in its freshness.

A block in the line occasioned by a local landslip--a frequent
occurrence on the hill-railway--detained the train till the afternoon,
at Kurseong, where the passengers left their carriages for luncheon at
the hotel.

At Sonada, further on, two ladies entered the compartment and audibly
discussed certain doings at Darjeeling where they appeared to be
residing. When Joyce heard her husband's name, she set herself to
listen, determined not to miss a word.

"I suppose she will be there," said one. "Wherever Mr. Meredith goes he
manages to get an invitation for her,--and people d