ng upon their haunches, sailed onward, presenting
a perfect picture of helplessness and baffled rage. Thus I gained nearly
a hundred yards at each turning. This was repeated two or three times,
every moment the animals getting more excited and baffled.

At one time, by delaying my turning too long, my sanguinary antagonists
came so near, that they threw the white foam over my dress as they
sprang to seize me, and their teeth clashed together, like the spring of
a fox-trap. Had my skates failed for one instant, had I tripped on a
stick, or caught my foot in a fissure in the ice, the story I am now
telling would never have been told. I thought all the chances over; I
knew where they would first take hold of me if I fell; I thought how
long it would be before I died, and then there would be a search for the
body that would already have its tomb;--for oh! how fast man's mind
traces out all the dread colors of Death's picture, only those who have
been near the grim original can tell.

But soon I came opposite the house, and my hounds--I knew their deep
voices--roused by the noise, bayed furiously from the kennels. I heard
their chains rattle; how I wished they would break them! and then I
should have protectors that would be peers to the fiercest denizens of
the forest. The wolves, taking the hint conveyed by the dogs, stopped in
their mad career, and after a moment's consideration, turned and fled. I
watched them until their dusky forms disappeared over a neighboring
hill. Then, taking off my skates, wended my way to the house, with
feelings which may be better imagined than described.

But even yet, I never see a broad sheet of ice in the moonshine, without
thinking of that snuffling breath and those fearful things that followed
me so closely down the frozen Kennebec.

CHAPTER IX.

"What a noble forest!" cried Annie, as she gazed with rapturous
admiration on a noble specimen of the engraver's art--so noble, indeed,
that the absence of color seemed hardly to be felt. It was a
richly-wooded scene, with interesting figures forming a procession in
the centre and foreground of the landscape. The original might have been
painted by Ruysdael. "Those old oaks," she exclaimed, "with their
gnarled and crooked branches, look as though they might have formed part
of the Druidical groves whose solemn mysteries inspired even the
arrogant Roman with awe. This picture, however, belongs to a later
period--that of the Crusades,