"Hear, hear!" said all in chorus, and Julian with playful force possessed himself of the pocket-book, while Kennedy, only asseverating that the verses were addressed to nobody in particular, fled from the sound of his own lyrics, which Julian proceeded to read. "Rose-opals of the sunlit hills Are flashing round my lonely way, And cataracts dash the rushing rills To plumes of glimmering spray. But mountain-streams and sunny gleams Are not so dear to me, As dawning of the golden love My spirit feels for thee! "Their diamond crowns and giant forms, The lordly hills upraise; Nor rushing winds nor shattering storms Can shake their solid base: Though Europe rests beneath their crests, And empires sleep secure, Less firm their bases than my love, Their snow less brightly pure." "There, rubbish enough," said Kennedy, returning and snatching away the pocket-book before Julian could read another verse. "`Like coffee made without trouble, drunk without regret,' as the Monday Oracle, with its usual exquisite urbanity, observed of a recent poet." "Of course addressed quite to an imaginary object, Eddy," said Eva, while Violet looked towards the hills, and hoped that the glow which covered her fair face might be taken for a reflection of the faint tinge that already began to fall over the distant ridges of pale snow. "We really must come away," said Julian; "it'll be sunset very soon, and then we shall have to climb down nearly in the dark." So they left the ridge, and while Kennedy and Cyril, amid shouts of laughter, glissaded gallantly over the slopes of snow, Julian and the guide conducted the girls by a method less rapid, but more secure. Arrived at the rocks, Cyril went forward with the guide, Julian followed with Eva, and Kennedy with Violet led up the rear. Why did they linger so long? Violet was tired, no doubt, but could she not have walked as fast as Eva, or was Kennedy's arm less stout than Julian's? She lingered, it seemed, with something of a conscious pleasure, now to pluck a flower or a fern, now to look at some yellow lichens on the purple crags; and once, when Julian looked back, the two were some way behind the rest of the party. They were standing on a rock gazing on the fading splendour of the mountains in front of them, while the light wind that had risen during the sunset, flung back his hair from his forehead, and played with one golden tress which had strayed down Violet's neck. He shouted to them to make haste, and they waved their hands to him with a gay salute. Thinking that they would soon overtake him, he pressed forward with Eva, and did not look back again. While Kennedy walked on with Violet in silence more sweet than speech, they fell into a dreamy mood, and wandered on half-oblivious of things around them, while deeper and deeper the shades of twilight began to cast their gloom over the hills.