A strip of blue fjord and a background of dark mountains, with the cool ice-kisses of the snow queen still resting on their dusky heads, can be seen at intervals through the fir and pine trees. A squirrel scrambles up a rowan-tree, and a cattle-bell tingles far in the woods. Nature has ever a discordant note in its symphony. A little brown bird is fluttering in helpless, terrified jerks; it emits, as it rises and falls, a sharp sound between a chirp and a squeak. A hawk is swooping over it: a poise--a dip--a few feathers float with the breeze, and hawk soars up with its prey in its claws. The red-brown eyes that gleam out of the small, sallow face of the woman who sits on the left side of the phaeton close for a second; the delicate nostrils quiver, the lips tighten over a sigh; then the lids rise again, the eyes are darker, the pupils have a trick of dilating; a smile subtle in meaning, for much of mocking pain and bitterness is expressed in its brief passage, flits across her face. A savage jerk! the horses stop. "Kiss me!" says the man who is driving. His voice is harsh, and the eyes that scan her face have a lurid light in them; and as he speaks a smell of spirit mingles with the smell of the pine chips. Her lips tighten still more; she turns to obey. She has to rise up a little; he is very tall. His nose is powerful like a hawk's beak, and his beard is stirred by the breeze, and his eyes peer out from under their fringe of black lashes with a cruel, passionate gleam. She almost touches his face, but falls back from a rough shove:-- "No! keep your kiss and be damned to you!" A savage whoop, the whip curls out and the reins jerk, and the quivering horses that know the voice too well dash on; and the hounds that have felt the whip-cord sting, as the strike of a snake on their flanks, bay savagely as they join in the race. On the right of the narrow, winding road a great lake lies hundreds of feet below; the wheel is not half a foot from the edge, and the vehicle jolts and leans that way, and the lash coils round and flicks her cheek, and leaves a sorry sting,--and she never winces at it, but her small hands clinch, and her lips part, and the red light flashes in her eyes, and something akin to exultant expectation steals over the thin small face as they court death each wheel-turn in their mad career. * * * * *