delight in childhood. Immediately beneath them lay a seeming plain,
glittering without in equality, and buried in mountains. The latter
were precipitous, especially on the side of the plain, and chiefly in
forest. Here and there the hills fell away in long, low points, and
broke the sameness of the outline, or setting to the long and wide
field of snow, which, without house, tree, fence, or any other
fixture, resembled so much spot less cloud settled to the earth. A
few dark and moving spots were, however, visible on the even surface,
which the eye of Elizabeth knew to be so many sleighs going their
several ways to or from the village. On the western border of the
plain, the mountains, though equally high, were less precipitous, and
as they receded opened into irregular valleys and glens, or were
formed into terraces and hollows that admitted of cultivation.
Although the evergreens still held dominion over many of the hills
that rose on this side of the valley, yet the undulating outlines of
the distant mountains, covered with forests of beech and maple, gave a
relief to the eye, and the promise of a kinder soil. Occasionally
spots of white were discoverable amidst the forests of the opposite
hills, which announced, by the smoke that curled over the tops of the
trees, the habitations of man and the commencement of agriculture.
These spots were sometimes, by the aid of united labor, enlarged into
what were called settlements, but more frequently were small and
insulated; though so rapid were the changes, and so persevering the
labors of those who had cast their fortunes on the success of the
enterprise, that it was not difficult for the imagination of Elizabeth
to conceive they were enlarging under her eye while she was gazing, in
mute wonder, at the alterations that a few short years had made in the
aspect of the country. The points on the western side of this
remarkable plain, on which no plant had taken root, were both larger
and more numerous than those on its eastern, and one in particular