s, grace, modesty, and shyness, but of a certain warm
and rich characteristic, which seems, for the most part, to have been
refined away out of the feminine system.

"And now," continued Zenobia, "I must go and help get supper. Do you
think you can be content, instead of figs, pineapples, and all the
other delicacies of Adam's supper-table, with tea and toast, and a
certain modest supply of ham and tongue, which, with the instinct of a
housewife, I brought hither in a basket? And there shall be bread and
milk, too, if the innocence of your taste demands it."

The whole sisterhood now went about their domestic avocations, utterly
declining our offers to assist, further than by bringing wood for the
kitchen fire from a huge pile in the back yard. After heaping up more
than a sufficient quantity, we returned to the sitting-room, drew our
chairs close to the hearth, and began to talk over our prospects.
Soon, with a tremendous stamping in the entry, appeared Silas Foster,
lank, stalwart, uncouth, and grizzly-bearded. He came from foddering
the cattle in the barn, and from the field, where he had been
ploughing, until the depth of the snow rendered it impossible to draw a
furrow. He greeted us in pretty much the same tone as if he were
speaking to his oxen, took a quid from his iron tobacco-box, pulled off
his wet cowhide boots, and sat down before the fire in his
stocking-feet. The steam arose from his soaked garments, so that the
stout yeoman looked vaporous and spectre-like.

"Well, folks," remarked Silas, "you'll be wishing yourselves back to
town again, if this weather holds."

And, true enough, there was a look of gloom, as the twilight fell
silently and sadly out of the sky, its gray or sable flakes
intermingling themselves with the fast-descending snow. The storm, in
its evening aspect, was decidedly dreary. It seemed to have arisen for
our especial behoof,--a symbol of the cold, desolate, distrustful
phantoms that invariably haunt the mind, on the eve of adventurous
enterprises, to warn us back within the boundaries of ordinary life.

But our courage did not quail. We would not allow ourselves to be
depressed by the snowdrift trailing past the window, any more than if
it had been the sigh of a summer wind among rustling boughs. There
have been few brighter seasons for us than that. If ever men might
lawfully dream awake, and give utterance to their wildest visions
without dread of laughter or scorn on