"This child," I said, "is not used to travelling, and the tunnel frightens her; so that I think, after all, we had better take the usual course across the mountains."
"Nonsense!" he answered. "There is no danger here; less probably than in an ordinary drive, certainly less than in a balloon. Don't spoil her, my friend. If you begin by yielding to so silly a caprice as this, you will end by breaking her heart before the two years are out."
"Do go on," whispered Eveena. "I was very silly; I am not so frightened now, and if you will hold me fast, I will not misbehave again."
Esmo had taken the matter out of my hands, desiring the boatman to proceed; and though I sympathised with my bride's feminine terror much more than her father appeared to do, I was selfishly anxious, in spite of my declaration that there could be no novelty in this tunnel, to see one thing certainly original—the means by which so narrow and so long a passage could be efficiently ventilated. The least I could do, however, was to appease Eveena's fear before turning my attention to the objects of my own curiosity. The presence of physical strength, which seemed to her superhuman, produced upon her nerves the quieting effect which, however irrationally, great bodily force always exercises over women; partly, perhaps, from the awe it seems to inspire, partly from a yet more unreasonable but instinctive reliance on its protection even in dangers against which it is obviously unavailing.
Presently a current of air, distinctly warmer than that of the tunnel, which had been gradually increas-
