still further away look as drearily uninviting as roofless dwellings with
icy hearthstones and smokeless chimneys. Towering above all, on the
right, is Storm King mountain, its granite rocks and precipices showing
darkly here and there, as if its huge white mantle were old and ragged
indeed. One might well shiver at the lonely, desolate wastes lying beyond
it, grim hills and early-shadowed valleys, where the half-starved fox
prowls, and watches for unwary rabbits venturing from their coverts to
nibble the frozen twigs. The river, which above the Highlands broadens
out into Newburgh Bay, has become a snowy plain, devoid, on this bitter
day, of every sign of life. The Beacon hills, on the further side, frown
forbiddingly through the intervening northern gale, sweeping southward
into the mountain gorge.

On a day like this the most ardent lover of Nature could scarcely fail to
shrink from her cold, pallid face and colder breath. Our return to the
home, whose ruddy firelight is seen through the frosted window-panes,
will be all the more welcome because we have been shivering so long
without. The grace of hospitality has been a characteristic of the master
of the house for over half a century, and therefore the reader need not
fear to enter, especially at this Christmas-time, when the world, as if
to make amends for the churlish welcome it gave to its Divine Guest, for
whom no better place was found than a stable, now throws open the door
and heart in kindly feeling and unselfish impulses.

We propose to make a long visit at this old-fashioned homestead. We shall
become the close friends of its inmates, and share in their family life;
they will introduce us to some of their neighbors, and take us on many
breezy drives and pleasant excursions, with which it is their custom to
relieve their busy life; we shall take part in their rural labors, and
learn from them the secret of obtaining from nature that which nourishes