th which he adjusts the wraps about the object of his
affections whether the weather be warm or cold: it is as if he thought
he could thus artificially warm her heart toward him. But Miss Dwyer did
not appear vexed, pretending indeed to be oblivious of everything else
in admiration of the spectacle before her.

The country stretched flat and bare as a table for fifty miles on either
side the track--a distance looking in the clear air not over one-fifth
as great. On every side this great plain was circled by mountains, the
reddish-brown sides of some of them bare to the summits, while others
were robed in folds of glistening snow and looked like white curtains
drawn part way up the sky. The whitey-gray of the alkali-patches, the
brown of the dry earth and the rusty green of the sagebrush filled the
foreground, melting in the distance into a purple-gray. The wondrous
dryness and clearness of the air lent to these modest tints a tone and
dazzling brilliance that surprised the eye with a revelation of
possibilities never before suspected in them. But the mountains were the
greatest wonder. It was as if the skies, taking pity on their nakedness,
had draped their majestic shoulders in imperial purple, while at this
hour the westering sun tipped their pinnacles with gilt. In the distance
half a dozen sand-spouts, swiftly-moving white pillars, looking like
desert genii with too much "tanglefoot" aboard, were careering about in
every direction.

But as Lombard pointed out the various features of the scene to his
companion, I fear that his chief motive was less an admiration of Nature
that sought sympathy than a selfish delight in making her eyes flash,
seeing the color come and go in her cheeks, and hearing her charming
unstudied exclamations of pleasure--a delight not unmingled with
complacency in associating himself in her mind with emotions of delight
and admiration. It is appalling, the extent to which spoony young people
make the admiration of Nature in her grandest forms a mere sauce to
their lovemaking. The roar of Niagara has been notoriously utilized as a
cover to unlimited osculation, and Adolphus looks up at the sky-cleaving
peak of Mont Blanc only to look down at Angelina's countenance with a
more vivid appreciation of its superior attractions.

It was delicious, Lombard thought, sitting there with her on the rear
platform, out of sight and sound of everybody. He had such a pleasant
sense of proprietorship in her!