thought, but that I had inadvertently changed with one of our guides. Imagine my grief at the thought that I had lost the dear companion of my travels, that staff which had guided my wavering feet and upheld my tottering body through passes and up mountains, and which I intended to preserve until my death! My situation without it was rather perilous, and would have been more so had not the snow been very soft. But the guide took me entirely in charge, and lent me his axe, which I was certain I should recklessly lose after the same fashion. After a weary time, Biener the guide decided to glissade me. I was resigned. What else could I be? By that time I was very resigned. He took off his coat, and made me sit down upon it, then tied my skirts around me. A rope was attached round my waist, one end of which was grasped by Biener in front, and the other by my gentlemen friends behind. Then ensued a process in which my limbs were nearly severed from the body, and in which I suffered greatly. Biener rushed down the slope dragging me behind him; while the gentlemen, unaccustomed to this sort of thing, and not being able to go fast enough, hung a good part of their weight on to the rope behind, and so almost bisected me. I never expected to be an individual whole again; halves were my fate. Never was creature in so miserable a plight. No Procrustean bed could have produced greater tortures than those I suffered as I sped down that miserable slope. I shouted all the French I could think of to Biener to stop him, and rid me from the hideous rope, which cut me like a knife; but the air would not carry my words, and on I skimmed and floundered. At last he heard my cries, and released me from the fetters. The fact was that the gentlemen were quite unable to keep up with Biener in the deep snow, with the dismal result, as seen above, of almost cutting through my waist. The lesson to be deduced from this is the simple maxim I commend to all my feminine readers: Never, under the most favourable circumstances, glissade.

When we reached the cabane where my friend was waiting for us, we were met by Johann, who told us with a long-face that the 'leddy' would not eat anything, and was very sick. We found, to our sorrow, that she had been in a miserable condition all day, and had suffered dreadfully from mountain sickness. She was so ill that it was impossible she could walk, and we were a long time in deciding what was to be done. Now, a helpless invalid, at a height of over eleven thousand feet above the sea, is not a being easy to legislate for. At last a litter was contrived. A chair was placed on some alpenstocks; and an American gentleman whom we met at the cabane being kind enough to lend us his porter, we found hands enough to carry her part of the way at least, to Zermatt; the Riffel-haus, where we were staying, being out of the question, on account of the Gorner glacier and its moraines and rocks, which would have to be passed to get there. Our party, sad to say, had then to separate, two of us going to Zermatt and two to the Riffel. The melancholy chaise-à-porteur procession wended its way to Zermatt; and with considerably damped spirits we went on to the Riffel, which we reached at about half-past six P.M. The ambulance party did not get to their destination till eight o'clock.

All that remains now to be told of this our adventure is the sad result. The next morning, on waking from sleep, I found that my ear adhered to the pillow; and when, with much trembling I approached the glass, a spectacle presented itself to me which I can never forget. As I gazed at the grotesque reflection of myself, I inwardly vowed that no mask of London make, elegantly worked as it might be, should ever cover my face again. A large flapping cover-all mask 'of the country' let me recommend to ladies who go up snow mountains. I was swollen; I was black; I was hideous! Half of the skin of one ear was hanging by a shred, and the ear itself was a blister; while all round my neck from ear to ear was a chain of blisters. Their state was so bad that the dressing of them by one of our party (a doctor) took half an hour, and I could scarcely turn my head. It required a good deal of courage to face table-d'hôte and the young ladies who were indulging in complexions and large portmanteaus. But I did! Would that I could say I enjoyed it. I did not enjoy it. The complexions of the scornful and the scorn itself, embittered that meal, usually attended with such joys. In my travelling afterwards, I became accustomed to the searching glance at my poor tattered skin and to the remark: 'I see you have been doing glacier-work.' And it was not until a month of English life had to some extent repaired me that I could look back with delight and triumph to the ascent of the Breithorn.