A driving northwesterly storm succeeded, and before the sun was set
every vestige of spring had vanished; the lake, the mountains, the
village, and the fields being again hidden under one dazzling coat of
snow.




CHAPTER XXII



“Men, boys, and girls
Desert the unpeopled village; and wild crowds
Spread o’er the plain, by the sweet phrensy driven.”-Somerville.

From this time to the close of April the weather continued to be a
succession of neat and rapid changes. One day the soft airs of spring
seemed to be stealing along the valley, and, in unison with an
invigorating sun, attempting covertly to rouse the dormant powers of
the vegetable world, while, on the next, the surly blasts from the
north would sweep across the lake and erase every impression left by
their gentle adversaries. The snow, however, finally disappeared, and
the green wheat fields were seen in every direction, spotted with the
dark and charred stumps that had, the preceding season, supported some
of the proudest trees of the forest. Ploughs were in motion, wherever
those useful implements could be used, and the smokes of the sugar-
camps were no longer seen issuing from the woods of maple. The lake
had lost the beauty of a field of ice, but still a dark and gloomy