did Mr. Sam Holt go to Europe?' for one item of news
brought by to-day's arrival was, that his eldest son had suddenly been
seized with a wish to visit England, and had gone in the last boat from
Halifax.

Glancing up at some remark, she encountered Mrs. Wynn's eyes, and
coloured deeply. That sweetest supervision of earth, a mother's loving
look, had read more deeply than the daughter imagined. Rising hurriedly,
on some slight excuse, she went to the window and looked out.

'Oh, papa! such glorious northern lights!'

Ay, surely. Low arcs of dazzling light stretched from east to west across
the whole breadth of the heavens; whence coruscated, in prolonged
flashes, gorgeous streamers of every colour, chiefly of pale emerald
green, pink, and amber.

'A rich aurora for this season of the year,' remarked Hiram Holt. 'Those
that are brightly coloured generally appear in autumn or spring.'

'Oh, yes,' said George; 'do you recollect how magnificent was one we had
while the fall-wheat was planting? the sky was all crimson, with yellow
streamers.'

'Do you know what the Indians think about auroras?' asked Mr. Holt.
'They believe that these flashes are the spirits of the dead dancing
before the throne of the Manitou, or Great Spirit.'

'No wonder they should seek for some supernatural cause of such
splendour,' observed Robert.

The aurora borealis exhibited another phase of its wondrous beauty on
the ensuing evening. The young people from Cedar Creek had gone to a
corn-husking bee at Vernon's, an old gentleman settler, who lived some
eight miles off on the concession line; and coming home in the sleighs,
the whole magnificent panorama of the skies spread above them. Waves
of light rolled slowly from shore to shore of the horizon in vast
pulsations, noiselessly ascending to the zenith, and descending all
across the stars, like tidal surges of the aerial ocean sweeping over
a shallow silver strand.

Three sleighs, a short distance from each other, were running along the
canal-like road, through dark walls of forest, towards the 'Corner.'
Now, it is a principle in all bringings home from these midwinter
bees, that families scatter as much as may be, and no sisters shall
be escorted by their own brothers, but by somebody else's brothers.
Consequently, Robert Wynn had paired off with Miss Armytage for this
drive; and Mr. Holt, greybeard though he was, would not resign Linda
to any one, but left young Armytage, Arthur, and J