up by the present owner of the property to portion off this
division of the grand old drawing-room of the mansion. Some
employed the time in eating their bread and cheese, with as
measured and incessant a motion of the jaws (and almost as
stupidly placid an expression of countenance), as you may see in
cows ruminating in the first meadow you happen to pass.

Some held up admiringly the beautiful ball-dress in progress,
while others examined the effect, backing from the object to be
criticised in the true artistic manner. Others stretched
themselves into all sorts of postures to relieve the weary
muscles; one or two gave vent to all the yawns, coughs, and
sneezes that bad been pent up so long in the presence of Mrs.
Mason. But Ruth Hilton sprang to the large old window, and
pressed against it as a bird presses against the bars of its
cage. She put back the blind, and gazed into the quiet moonlight
night. It was doubly light--almost as much so as day--for
everything was covered with the deep snow which had been falling
silently ever since the evening before. The window was in a
square recess; the old strange little panes of glass had been
replaced by those which gave more light. A little distance off,
the feathery branches of a larch waved softly to and fro in the
scarcely perceptible night-breeze. Poor old larch! the time had
been when it had stood in a pleasant lawn, with the tender grass
creeping caressingly up its very trunk; but now the lawn was
divided into yards and squalid back premises, and the larch was
pent up and girded about with flagstones. The snow lay thick on
its boughs, and now and then fell noiselessly down. The old
stables had been added to, and altered into a dismal street of
mean-looking houses, back to back with the ancient mansions. And