'How beautiful this is!' she cried; 'how solemn, how solitary! Already all the world seems to be something unsubstantial, and the mountains the only reality.' Felicia threw herself back upon the turf and gave a great sigh of relief. 'I love these delicious gusts of air,' she said, 'fresh and pure from the snow-tops.' 'Yes,' cried Maud; 'how serene and grand they look! No wonder the Alpine tourists go crazy about them and break their necks in clambering about them, bewildered with pleasure: '"How faintly flushed, how phantom fair, Was Monte Rosa hanging there! A thousand shadowy pencilled valleys And snowy dells in a golden air!" 'And here is a whole horizon of Monte Rosas! I should like to stop a month here and devote myself to sketching.' While they were chatting in the shade, a native lad, who had been standing on a neighbouring knoll, came running down to a picketed pony and began hurriedly to prepare him for departure. 'What Sahib's horse?' Vernon asked with that imperative inquisitiveness that the superior race allows itself in India. 'Boldero Sahib,' replied the breathless groom; and before many minutes more 'Boldero Sahib' himself began to be apparent on the opposite hillside. 'The impetuous Boldero,' cried Vernon, 'riding abroad, redressing human wrongs, and doing his best, as usual, to break his neck, as if there could by any possibility be anything worth hurrying about in the plains below. Now, Maud, you will see a real philanthropist in flesh and blood.' Presently the tiny distant object had shaped itself into a man and horse, and in a quarter of an hour more Boldero came clattering into the yard, had slung himself out of the saddle in a moment, and was already preparing to mount his new horse, when he discovered the Vernons and was introduced to Maud. He seemed to have broken like a whirlwind into the repose of the party. His servants were evidently well experienced in their master's movements; the saddle had been speedily shifted and the fresh horse was already ready for a start. Boldero drank off a great beaker of cold water. Maud's first impression was that he looked extremely handsome and extremely hot, and in better spirits and a greater hurry than she had ever seen any one in in her life. Vernon, after first greetings, had speedily resumed his attitude of profound repose and evidently had no intention of being infected with bustle. 'Come, Boldero,' he said, 'do, for goodness' sake, send away your horse and wait here and have some lunch, instead of flying off in such a madman's hurry. India, which has already waited several thousand years for your arrival to reform her, can, no doubt, dispense with you for twenty minutes more; and fortune does not send good meetings every day.' 'Yes, Mr. Boldero,' said Felicia, 'and I have just been making a salad, which I am delighted you have arrived to admire; and I daresay you have half-a-dozen new ferns to show me.'