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but when the summit wears the wreath and veil of midwinter, and the snowstorms are blown over from the Antarctic circle to whirl and whistle on the peaks, this must indeed be solitude. As they descended the ranges in long diagonal steps, the scenery gradually became more tame and lowland in its character, and the wind brought the scent and flavour of the sea on its wings, very distinct from the breath of inland fields and valleys. Clare noticed that her companion was gradually brightening under the influence of even this one day’s travel; and she saw, too, that other people admired the graceful, pale young lady in the Redfern travelling gown.

“Alice is so much improved,” she was writing to her husband that very morning, “you would hardly know her again. She has so much more style and worldly wisdom now. Nature has endowed her with the unusual faculty of looking sad attractively. Many people ( I have a suspicion sometimes that I belong to this class myself) only manage to look cross when they are feeling mournful, just as others (I hope I am not one of them) always appear haughtily exclusive while all the time they are suffering agonies of shyness and self- distrust. But I must not allow her to practise this attraction too much.