We arrived quite comfortably, dear mother, but almost frozen, particularly W. He has not been extracted from the fire since we got here. Henrietta will have told you of our start. Pontécoulant and one or two men were at the station to see us off--also the Chef de Gare, most civil, and saying we should not be disturbed at the frontier--and that our coupé-lit would take us straight through to Florence. We had a perfectly easy journey, and I slept quite peacefully--waking up merely when we passed through the tunnel, as the guard came in to shut all the windows. It was a beautiful, cold, starlight winter night. The great mountains covered with snow looked gigantic as we approached--"sinistres" as Madame Hubert[9] said. She was much impressed and rather nervous. There were very few people in the train. When we arrived at Modane the Chef de Gare was waiting for us--he had been telegraphed from Paris to expect us. We had breakfast in the private room, and a nice woman was waiting for us upstairs in the ladies' room with hot water, towels, etc. I made quite a toilet--she carried off my dress and jacket to brush--and then we went down to a nice little breakfast which tasted very good, as I hadn't had anything since our 7 o'clock dinner. They offered us coffee somewhere--Dijon I think--but I didn't want anything then. All the first part of the road--in fact all the road to Turin was lovely. It was a bright, cold morning, and the snow mountains looked beautiful. It was such a pleasure to hear Italian once more--even the names at the stations "capo stazione"--"grande velocità"--"uscita," etc., also the shrill "partenza" when we started. The last time I crossed the Mont Cenis was by the Fell railway when we all started together from Aix. That was certainly very beautiful--but rather terrifying--particularly as we neared the top and looked at the steep places and the various zigzags we were to follow going down. One couldn't help feeling that if a brake or chain broke there would be a terrible catastrophe. I remember so well some of the women who were quite sea-sick--the swaying motion, I suppose, as we rounded the curves, of which there were many. I can see one now stretched out on the floor on a rug in the small salle d'attente at Susa, quite exhausted and absolutely indifferent to the outside world. [8] Mrs. Charles King, mother of Madame Waddington. [9] Madame Waddington's maid.