Still there was something due to opinion, especially to the opinion of those he reverenced and loved. Doubts might naturally arise if he halted without any reasonable motive by the way; if he detained her who was to be his bride before she was his bride, in any lengthened sojourn, almost alone with him, in distant lands. They went slowly, therefore; but they still proceeded. They stopped sometimes during a whole day for rest; and for that purpose they chose the most beautiful scenes they could find--scenes which harmonised with the feelings of their own hearts. It would have been too much to expect that two beings, loving as they loved, should ride post through the most beautiful parts of Europe. Their journeys, too, were slow and short. They sought to enjoy everything worth enjoying that presented itself. They loved to see, and to comment, and to delight--to pour into each other's bosoms every thought as it arose, and to blend, as it were, their minds together as their hearts were already blended. For the deeds that were enacted round them--and there were many at that time of surpassing interest--they cared very little. What was to them what princes or potentates said or did? What was to them the shifting scenes of policy or war? They had a world apart within themselves, in which every feeling and every thought was centred. As they approached the mountains of Savoy, however, they heard some rumours of military movements, which caused alarm in the mind of Mr. Rhind. He was a very peaceable man, and somewhat timid; but Lord Gowrie treated the matter lightly, and Julia seemed hardly to comprehend that there was any danger to unwarlike persons in the strife of monarchs. Their progress, however, was rendered even slower than before, by other circumstances. Mountains to climb presented themselves at every step; roads were bad and dangerous, towns became few, and accommodation difficult to be procured. The art of the engineer had not at that time triumphed over the barriers which nature had placed between land and land, and the first fall of snow, though scanty, had added to the difficulties of the way.