glided into the cold gloom of the valley. Along the summits of the
mountains in the eastern range, it is true, the light still lingered,
receding step by step from the earth into the clouds that were
gathering with the evening mist, about the limited horizon, but the
frozen lake lay without a shadow on its bosom; the dwellings were
becoming already gloomy and indistinct, and the wood-cutters were
shouldering their axes and preparing to enjoy, throughout the long
evening before them, the comforts of those exhilarating fires that
their labor had been supplying with fuel. They paused only to gaze at
the passing sleighs, to lift their caps to Marmaduke, to exchange
familiar nods with Richard, and each disappeared in his dwelling. The
paper curtains dropped behind our travellers in every window, shutting
from the air even the firelight of the cheerful apartments, and when
the horses of her father turned with a rapid whirl into the open gate
of the mansion-house, and nothing stood before her but the cold dreary
stone walls of the building, as she approached them through an avenue
of young and leafless poplars, Elizabeth felt as if all the loveliness
of the mountain-view had vanished like the fancies of a dream.
Marmaduke retained so much of his early habits as to reject the use of
bells, but the equipage of Mr. Jones came dashing through the gate
after them, sending its jingling sounds through every cranny of the
building, and in a moment the dwelling was in an uproar.

On a stone platform, of rather small proportions, considering the size
of the building, Richard and Hiram had, conjointly, reared four little
columns of wood, which in their turn supported the shingled roofs of
the portico— this was the name that Mr. Jones had thought proper to
give to a very plain, covered entrance. The ascent to the platform
was by five or six stone steps, somewhat hastily laid together, and
which the frost had already begun to move from their symmetrical