Up to this hour the day had been clear and mild, but now the sky began to cloud over, and when they reached Alexandria the snow began to fall, and as they left the old town behind them and the short winter afternoon drew to a close, the storm thickened, if that could be called a storm in which there was no wind, but a cataclysm of snow falling directly, silently and continuously upon the earth. Strange scenes were traced on the window panes without, weird, beautiful, fantastic scenes—cities, palaces, gardens, trees—all drawn in frosted silver. They fascinated the imagination of Palma, who was never tired of gazing and dreaming. Little or nothing could be seen through the storm of the country over which they were flying. They reached Oaklands, on the Alleghanies, late at night. They had taken through tickets to the end of their railway journey, and the train was going on that night; yet, as the storm continued, they determined to lay over until the next morning. Leaving their trunks on the baggage car to go on to their destination, they took their hand-bags and walked through the thickly falling snow to the hotel, where they were comforted by clean rooms, glorious hickory wood fires, and a delicious supper of venison steaks, broiled ham, buckwheat cakes, hot rolls, tea, coffee, and rich cream, and butter, and honey such as is seldom found anywhere. It had been a fatiguing day, and as they could see nothing of the country for the snowstorm, they all went to bed and slept the sleep of the just. The next morning they rose to a new life. The storm had ceased. The sky was clear, and the sun was shining over a splendid, a magnificent, a dazzling world of mountains, valleys, fields and forests, all arrayed in white and decked with diamonds. “Oh! Cleve,” cried Palma, looking out from the upper window of her bedroom, “does it seem possible that only yesterday we were in a crowded city, not two hundred miles away, and that now we find ourselves in this magnificent scene? Why, Cleve, yesterday seems to be a thousand years behind, and this to be another planet!” Her rhapsodies were interrupted by the breakfast bell. And for all answer Cleve smiled, drew her arm within his own and led her down to the breakfast table. There were some few other wayfarers present in the room, and these men were standing around the great, roaring wood fire and talking politics or crops. But they soon left their position and sat down at the board. Mrs. Pole was there, too, ready to join her friends. “Did you ever dream of such a world as this, Poley?” whispered Palma as the three sat down in a row, Palma being in the middle. “No, never in all my life! I never even ’magined as there could be such a place as this! And, oh! ain’t it cold, neither?” “Cold, but such a fine, pure, healthy cold. And the hot coffee will warm you, Poley.” The breakfast was in many respects a repetition of the supper, and in all respects equal to it.