hy yearnings of a
maiden's nature, the wind through the Notch took a deeper and drearier
sound. It seemed, as the fanciful stranger said, like the choral strain
of the spirits of the blast, who in old Indian times had their dwelling
among these mountains, and made their heights and recesses a sacred
region. There was a wail along the road, as if a funeral were passing.
To chase away the gloom, the family threw pine branches on their fire,
till the dry leaves crackled and the flame arose, discovering once again
a scene of peace and humble happiness. The light hovered about them
fondly, and caressed them all. There were the little faces of the
children, peeping from their bed apart, and here the father's frame of
strength, the mother's subdued and careful mien, the high-browed youth,
the budding girl, and the good old grandam, still knitting in the
warmest place. The aged woman looked up from her task, and, with fingers
ever busy, was the next to speak.

'Old folks have their notions,' said she, 'as well as young ones. You've
been wishing and planning; and letting your heads run on one thing and
another, till you've set my mind a wandering too. Now what should an old
woman wish for, when she can go but a step or two before she comes to
her grave? Children, it will haunt me night and day till I tell you.'

'What is it, mother?' cried the husband and wife at once.

Then the old woman, with an air of mystery which drew the circle closer
round the fire, informed them that she had provided her grave-clothes
some years before--a nice linen shroud, a cap with a muslin ruff, and
everything of a finer sort than she had worn since her wedding day. But
this evening an old superstition had strangely recurred to her. It used
to be said, in her younger days, that if anything were amiss with a
corpse, if only the ruff were not smooth, or the cap did not set right,
the corpse in the coffin and beneath the clods would strive to put up
its cold hands and arrange it. The bare thought made her nervous.

'Don't talk so, grandmother!' said the girl, shuddering.

'Now'--continued the old woman, with singular earnestness, yet smiling
strangely at her own folly--'I want one of you, my children--when
your mother is dressed and in the coffin---I want one of you to hold
a looking-glass over my face. Who knows but I may take a glimpse at
myself, and see whether all's right?'

'Old and young, we dream of graves and monuments,' murmured the strang