But Serena's repertory was weak, though her spirit was willing.
There was an unspoken sentiment among the men that "The Sweet By and
By" was not quite the best tune in the world for a quadrille. A
Sunday-school hymn, no matter how rapidly it was rendered, seemed to
fall short of the necessary vivacity for a polka. Besides, the
wheezy little organ positively refused to go faster than a certain
gait. Hose Ransom expressed the popular opinion of the instrument,
after a figure in which he and his partner had been half a bar ahead
of the music from start to finish, when he said:

"By Jolly! that old maloney may be chock full o' relijun and po'try;
but it ain't got no DANCE into it, no more 'n a saw-mill."


This was the situation of affairs inside of Moody's tavern on New
Year's Eve. But outside of the house the snow lay two feet deep on
the level, and shoulder-high in the drifts. The sky was at last
swept clean of clouds. The shivering stars and the shrunken moon
looked infinitely remote in the black vault of heaven. The frozen
lake, on which the ice was three feet thick and solid as rock, was
like a vast, smooth bed, covered with a white counterpane. The
cruel wind still poured out of the northwest, driving the dry snow
along with it like a mist of powdered diamonds.

Enveloped in this dazzling, pungent atmosphere, half blinded and
bewildered by it, buffeted and yet supported by the onrushing
torrent of air, a man on snow-shoes, with a light pack on his
shoulders, emerged from the shelter of the Three Sisters' Islands,
and staggered straight on, down the lake. He passed the headland of