river there as swiftly as you can next summer on the fastest steamer."

Amy was too English to be afraid of a horse, and with wraps that soon
proved burdensome in the increasing warmth of the day, she and Burt
dashed down the slopes and hill that led to the river, and out upon the
wide, white plain. She was a little nervous as she thought of the fathoms
of cold, dark water beneath her; but when she saw the great loads of
lumber and coal that were passing to and fro on the track she was
convinced that the ice-bridge was safe, and she gave herself up to the
unalloyed enjoyment of the grand scenery. First they crossed Newburgh
Bay, with the city rising steeply on one side, and the Beacon Mountains
further away on the other. The snow covered the ice unbrokenly, except as
tracks crossed here and there to various points. Large flocks of crows
were feeding on these extemporized roadways, and they looked blacker than
crows in the general whiteness. As the sleigh glided here and there it
was hard for Amy to believe that they were in the track of steamers and
innumerable sail-boats, and that the distant shores did not slope down to
a level plain, on which the grass and grain would wave in the coming
June; but when Burt turned southward and drove under the great beetling
mountains, and told her that their granite feet were over a hundred yards
deep in the water, she understood the marvellous engineering of the
frost-spirit that had spanned the river, where the tides are so swift,
and had so strengthened it in a few short days and nights that it could
bear enormous burdens.

Never before had she seen such grand and impressive scenery. They could
drive within a few feet of the base of Storm King and Cro' Nest; and the
great precipices and rocky ledges, from which often hung long, glittering
icicles, seemed tenfold more vast than when seen from a distance. The
furrowed granite cliffs, surmounted by snow, looked like giant faces,