snow as it fell, sent it leaping downward in a torrent that seemed half
diamonds, half pearl drifts, under which the pure waters went singing
softly on their way to the river.

Lina did not heed the gentle warning of the waters, but sprang forward
in wild haste. Her step shattered the glittering ice right and left, and
the cold water gushed over her feet and garments, but she moved on
without pause, climbing up the banks of the stream till a smooth
platform of snow, and a house whose windows were fitfully revealed by
pale gleams of light, evidently from a half buried fire, stood before
her.

She drew near to the house, standing there in the darkness, and began to
stagger, for now the unnatural strength which had nerved her, gave way.
The icy waters of the brook froze into fetters, around her ankles, and
she fell, without a sigh or moan, with her face toward the earth.

The poor little hound, after pulling at her garments with piteous
whines, set up a howl that rang mournfully over the snow waste around.
Lina did not move. She was sensible, but utterly strengthless. All that
she had suffered was lost in a single desire to be still, and sleep or
die.

The howl of her poor, shivering companion, so sharp and plaintive in
reality came to her ear as if from a great distance, and for once she
struggled to call Fair-Star by name, and tell him where she was, but her
lips gave forth no sound, and when the dog set up another cry, Lina did
not hear it.

CHAPTER LX.

THE DARK-HOUSE.

In less than an hour after Lina French fell so helplessly upon the snow
drifted around that old house, the storm swept by, and forcing the
leaden clouds aside, came the moon, followed by ten thousand stars, that
shone calmly and pure in the frosty atmosphere. Directly, bright
scintillations of frost arose upon the white waste of snow, and the
whole earth seemed crusted with diamond dust. The midnight was supremely
beautiful, and the stillness around that old house had something that
seemed holy in it, but now and then a faint howl broke over the
glittering hills, which gave warning that sorrow, pain, and, perhaps,
death were near.

A woman coming up from the shore heard the cry, and stopped to listen.
She, too, was weary and panting from a toilsome struggle with the storm.
But a cloak of soft Russian sables and a hood of crimson silk protected
her as far as it was possible from the weather. Still her feet sunk
heavily in the snow at