[76] Instantly, Mrs. Melville fished her guide-book and began to read: “‘There are few mountain passes more famous than that known to the world as Cape Horn. The approach to it is picturesque, the north fork of the American River raging and foaming in its rocky bed, fifteen hundred feet below and parallel with the track—’” “Do you mind, Millicent, if we look instead of listen?” Aunt Rebecca interrupted, and Mrs. Melville lapsed into an injured muteness. Truly, Cape Horn has a poignant grandeur that strikes speech from the lips. One can not look down that sheer height to the luminous ghost of a river below, without a thrill. If to pass along the cliff is a shivering experience, what must the actual execution of that stupendous bit of engineering have been to the workmen who hewed the road out of the rock, suspended over the abyss! Their dangling black figures seem to sway still as one swings around the curve. Our travelers sat in silence, until the “Cape”[77] was passed and again they could see their road-bed on the side. Then Mrs. Melville made a polite excuse for departure; she had promised a “Daughter” whom she had met at various “biennials” that she would have a little talk with her. Thus she escaped. They did not miss her. Hardly speaking, the four sat in the dimly lighted, tiny room, while mountains and fields and star-sown skies drifted by. Unconsciously, Archie drew closer to his uncle, and the older man threw an arm about the young shoulders. He looked up to meet Janet’s eyes shining and sweet, in the flash of a passing station light. Mrs. Winter smiled, her wise old smile. [77] With the next morning came another shift of scene; they were in the fertile valleys of California. At every turn the landscape became more softly tinted, more gracious. Aunt Rebecca was in the best of humor and announced herself as having the journey of her life. The golden green of the grain fields, the towering palms, the pepper-trees with their fascinating grace, the round tops of the live-oaks, the gloss of the orange groves, the calla-lily hedges and the heliotrope and geranium trees which climbed to the second story of the stucco houses, filled her with the enthusiasm[78] of a child. She drank in the cries of the enterprising young liar who cried “Fresh figs,” months out of season, and she ate fruit, withered in cold storage, with a trustful zest. No less than three books about the flora of California came out of her bag.
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