round and regarding the narrator with a look of ill
assumed indifference, "a coold a toold it mysel in half
the time."

"I am afraid you would not tell it so faithfully" replied
Lieutenant Villiers, amid the loud laugh which was now
raised at Cranstoun's expense. "You see it is so good a
thing I like to make the most of it."

Here Cranstoun again turned his back upon the party, and
Villiers pursued,

"The main body of the expedition had got nearly half way
across the river, when suddenly our ears were assailed
by moanings, resembling those of some wild beast, mingled
with incessant and ungovernable laughter. Checking our
course, and turning to behold the cause, we observed,
about a hundred yards below us, the sledge of the
D'Egvilles, from which the almost convulsive laughter
proceeded, and at a considerable distance beyond this
again, an object the true character of which we were some
time in discovering.

"It appeared, on subsequent explanation, that Cranstoun,
who had been whispering soft nothings in the ear of Julia
D'Egville, (here the Captain was observed to prick his
ear without materially altering his position) hem!
Cranstoun, I say, it appeared had also taken it into his
head to give her a specimen of his agility, by an attempt
to clear a space between two masses of ice of somewhat