of cloud creeping slowly up.

"Let us ride fast," cried Mr. K---, "or we shall have a sou'-wester
upon us;" so we galloped home as quickly as we could, over ground
that I don't really believe I could summon courage to walk across,
ever so slowly, to-day,--but then one's nerves and courage are in
very different order out in New Zealand to the low standard which
rules for ladies in England, who "live at home in ease!" Long
before we reached home the storm was pelting us: my little jacket
was like a white board when I took it off, for the sleet and snow
had frozen as it fell. I was wet to the skin, and so numb with cold
I could hardly stand when we reached home at last in the dark and
down-pour. I could only get my things very imperfectly dried, and
had to manage as best I could, but yet no one even thought of making
the inquiry next morning when I came out to breakfast, "Have you
caught cold?" It would have seemed a ridiculous question.



Chapter V: Toboggon-ing.

I cannot resist the temptation to touch upon one of the winter
amusements which came to us two years later. Yet the word
"amusement" seems out of place, no one in the Province having much
heart to amuse themselves, for the great snow storm of August, 1867,
had just taken place, and we were in the first days of bewilderment
at the calamity which had befallen us all. A week's incessant
snow-fall, accompanied by a fierce and freezing south-west wind, had
not only covered the whole of the mountains from base to brow with
shining white, through which not a single dark rock jutted, but had