Now the scenery, which she had not been seeing, became more lonely and wild; the first low hills, heavy and slow in the general nimbleness of things, shifted themselves with an amiable clumsiness till they had closed in Chloris with her train; waking her suddenly, with a faintly happy sense of diversion from immediate suffering, to the feeling of being a child again visiting strange countries. Then wheeled and tumbled themselves about and came to meet her the little hills' big brothers, the mountains, with velvety sides, and rocky, rosy summits. A weight for no reason seemed to melt away from Chloris's chest as she looked up at them, and thought of living among them now for many a day--the distinguished, sage, cool, sturdily benevolent ones, so high above, so far from, the world she knew, down on the hot-colored, populous plain. Here she was at last, where she must alight; in a high, pure, crystal-clear atmosphere, at a little lost place, wildly green to eyes used to the sun-burned shore, forgotten of all the world but this train that remembered it for a second twice a day. And here was Fidele! It seemed to Chloris she had not half known, until this moment, how fond she was of Fidele. Tears sprang to her eyes on meeting the familiar eyes, and she embraced her old school friend with an impulse of overflowing gratitude. She felt like a storm-beaten lamb come to some sort of shelter at last. After the first moment's frantic clutch the two friends stood apart, holding hands, and looking each other fondly and frankly over, with wide, moved smiles. Fidele, seeing Chloris's eyes, wondered why tears had not come to her, too; and compared her own nature unfavorably with her friend's rich nature; and at this thought of her friend's deep, sweet nature, behold! tears were come in her affectionate eyes, too. Then both girls fell to giggling like schoolgirls, from mere association of this meeting with other meetings; and in a moment were talking lightly and inconsecutively, in an involuntary imitation of old days; and Fidele had taken her friend's arm tightly under her own, intertwined their fingers, and was dragging her along at a hop-and-skip pace. "What a godsend you are to me!" she exclaimed, rapturously. "There is not a soul in this forsaken place to whom one can talk like a Christian. Oh, but we are slow! Oh, but we are primitive! Oh, but we are simple!--" "What air it is!" Chloris breathed, profoundly. "How sweet! I never dreamed such green!--My dear, this is Paradise!"