A strange world they found it, when once they had left the level of the little valley and begun to climb the steep and twisting road cut on the face of the mountain. The aspect of things changed every few minutes, as the rolling mists slowly blotted out this or that portion of the landscape, or settled down so close that they could see nothing but the wet snow in the road, and the black-stemmed pines beyond, with their green branches stretching out towards them through the pall of cloud. Then sometimes they would look down into extraordinary gulfs of mist—extraordinary because, far below them, they would find the top of a fir-tree, the branches laden with snow, the tree itself apparently resting on nothing—floating in mid air. It was a phantasmal world altogether, the most cheerful feature of it being that at last the snow had ceased to fall.
This decided Nan to get out for a walk.
'You will be wet through,' her elder sister exclaimed.
'My boots are thick,' said Nan, 'and Parsons has my waterproof.'
When she had got down, and disappeared, Miss Beresford said,
'She is a strange girl; she always wants to be alone.'
'She seems to think a great deal, and she always thinks in her own way,' said Frank King. 'No doubt she prefers to be alone; but—but don't you think I ought to get out and see that she is all right?'
'There are no brigands in these mountains, are there?' said Miss
Beresford, laughing.
'And she can't lose her way,' said the more serious Edith, 'unless she were to fall over the side.'
'I think I will get out,' he said, and he called to the driver.