The weather was fine, but still very cold. The sun, scarce above the horizon, described a lengthened curve; and its rays, reflected on the snow, gave more light than heat. Fortunately not a breath of air stirred, and this lessened the severity of the cold, although the rapid pace of the sledges through the keen atmosphere must have been trying to any one not inured to the rigour of a Polar climate. “A good beginning,” said Jaspar Hobson to the Sergeant, who sat motionless beside him as if rooted to his seat; “the journey has commenced favourably. The sky is cloudless; the temperature propitious, our equipages shoot along like express trains, and as long as this fine weather lasts we shall get on capitally. What do you think, Sergeant Long?” “I agree with you, Lieutenant,” replied the Sergeant, who never differed from his chief. “Like myself, Sergeant, you are determined to push on as far north as possible—are you not?” resumed Lieutenant Hobson. “You have but to command to be obeyed, Lieutenant.” “I know it, Sergeant; I know that with you to bear is to obey. Would that all our men understood as you do the importance of our mission, and would devote themselves body and soul to the interests of the Company! Ah, Sergeant Long, I know if I gave you an impossible order— “ “Lieutenant, there is no such thing as an impossible order.” “What? Suppose now I ordered you to go to the North Pole?” “Lieutenant, I should go !” “And to comeback!” added Jaspar Hobson with a smile. “I should come back,” replied Sergeant Long simply. During this colloquy between Lieutenant Hobson and his Sergeant a slight ascent compelled the sledges to slacken speed, and Mrs Barnett and Madge also exchanged a few sentences. These two intrepid women, in their otter-skin caps and white bear-skin mantles, gazed in astonishment upon the rugged scenery around them, and at the white outlines of the huge glaciers standing out against the horizon. They had already left behind them the hills of the northern banks of the Slave Lake, with their summits crowned with the gaunt skeletons of trees. The vast plains stretched before them in apparently endless succession. The rapid flight and cries of a few birds of passage alone broke the monotony of the scene. Now and then a troop of swans, with plumage so white that the keenest sight could not distinguish them from the snow when they settled on the ground, rose into view in the clear blue atmosphere and pursued their journey to the north. “What an extraordinary country !” exclaimed Mrs Paulina Barnett. “What a difference between these Polar regions and the green prairies of Australia! You remember, Madge, how we suffered from the heat on the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria—you remember the cloudless sky and the parching sunbeams?” My dear,” replied Madge, “I have not the gift of remembering like you. You retain your impressions, I forget mine.”