White masses of mountain glowed ahead, peaks and crags all glittering in the sun like a huge cascade streaming down from the clouds; ranges of pure crystal, polished like glass, and edged with rose-pink by the colours of the western sky; snow-white gorges of milky quartz, and silver cataracts flung in foam from the whiteness above to the green below. "These," he said softly, with a thrill of old-world superstition, "these must surely be the great crystal mountains where the Iroquois believe that the gods dwell." He hurried on, his eyes watering because of the dazzling light reflected from those crystal walls; and as he went he turned to lover's thoughts, and determined that, after all, the sun glow upon the white peaks was not one-half so lovely as the flush upon Madeleine's soft cheek. Here before him was Nature's finest insentient handiwork. It was glowing and full of music, but its loveliness lacked life, and its warmth was borrowed from the sun. It was only beautiful as a part of the environment of the life of the soul. How he longed for Madeleine to stand at his side and behold those everlasting hills in splendour and the sun swimming in red! And with that longing he half unconsciously breathed the healthful text to which she had attuned her happy soul, "It is life--glorious, everlasting life!" Vitality rose to its full height within Geoffrey's body; and when he felt no more the weight of his heavy kit, he ran over the broken ground and up the narrow gorge, until two white walls closed him gently into the panting bosom of the crystal hills. "Here is the home of fairies," he exclaimed, when he stopped at a great height, and looked upon three tiny lakes which made a trinity of motionless mirrors decked by feathers of cloud, the water like white wine brimming in great bowls of granite. Immediately a gentle voice was wafted through the air, "Here is the home of fairies," and after a pause the information was repeated like the warble of a weary bird, the last notes dying inaudible around the cliffs. Geoffrey dared not speak again. The genius of the place was over him, waiting to give a signal to the expectant choir. Footfalls preceded the traveller, the echo of his own. The many-mouthed King of the Mountains pattered before him, breathing the stranger a gentle welcome to the district which he ruled. Geoffrey crept on tiptoe to the edge of the nearest pool, until he could see the weedless rock-bottom and the land-locked salmon lying near the surface, gently fanning their red fins, and watching him with wondering eyes. Seating himself, the traveller bathed his weary feet and watched the water swallows, darting and splashing, snatching the fat flies which spotted the surface like drops of rain, sucking them in and pushing out their little black noses for more.