y 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 love-making. 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! How agreeable--flatteringly so, in
fact--she had been all day! There was nothing like traveling together
to make people intimate. It was clear that she understood his intentions
very well: indeed, how could she help it? He had always said that
a fellow had shown himself a bungler at love-making if he were not
practically assured of the result before he came to the point of the
declaration. The sensation of leaving everything else so rapidly behind
that people have when sitting on the rear platform of a t