OUR NEW RANXH. 85 



weather-worn, although the surface is softened by the 

 trailing garlands of dark pines which grow in the 

 hollows and along the watercourses. It is a never- 

 ending pleasure to watch the transformations of light 

 and colour on these mountain sides — the mottling 

 shadows of the scurrying clouds, the clinging scarves 

 and veils of fleecy mist, the purple glow of evening, 

 the splashes of vivid sunset flying over the snow- 

 capped mountain crests, the gloom of the coming 

 snowstorm, the vivid sharpness of the frost, the 

 limpid purity of early summer dawn. Of all her 

 various moods, I think I admire the lake most when 

 she lays all her caprices and coquetries aside and just 

 rests. At such times — and the loveliest hour is at 

 daybreak on a midsummer morning or towards the 

 close of a warm, bright day in autumn — every feature 

 of the rocky mountains around, every tree, almost 

 every twig, is etched on the glassy surface with such 

 keen and minute sharpness that it is not always easy 

 to tell at the first glance where the lake ends and the 

 dry land begins. 



The house is large and rambling. The original 

 building has been added to at various times, and 

 there are evidences of the internal arrangements 

 having been materially modified. For some time it 

 was used as a lake-side summer hotel, to which the 

 people of Nelson resorted, especially on Sundays, for 

 snug little dinners. Notwithstanding the close prox- 

 imity of the mountains, the outlook from the windows 

 is always cheerful. We stand sufficiently high above 

 the lake to see everything that passes to and fro on 

 its waters. All summer it is alive with pleasure boats 

 and launches, and even in winter three steamboats 



