sement to his comrades, and not unfrequently
brought him into violent collision with Bryan, who usually received him
on such occasions with a strong Irish growl, mingled with a disparaging
or contemptuous remark.

Beyond the circle of light thrown by the fire was the belt of willows
which encompassed the camp on all sides except towards the sea, where a
narrow gap formed a natural entrance and afforded a glimpse of the ocean
with its fields and hummocks of ice floating on its calm bosom and
glancing in the faint light of the moon, which was then in its first
quarter.

"How comfortable and snug everything is!" said Mrs Stanley, as she
poured out the tea, while her husband carved the duck.

"Yes, isn't it, Eda?" said Frank, patting his favourite on the head, as
he held out her plate for a wing. "There, give her a bit of the breast
too," he added. "I know she's ravenously hungry, for I saw her looking
at Chimo, just before we landed, as if she meant to eat him for supper
without waiting to have him cooked."

"O Frank, how can you be so wicked?" said Eda, taking up her knife and
fork and attacking the wing with so much energy as almost to justify her
friend's assertion.

"Snug, said you, Jessie? yes, that's the very word to express it," said
Stanley. "There's no situation that I know of (and I wasn't born
yesterday) that is so perfectly snug, and in all respects comfortable,
as an encampment in the woods on a fine night in spring or autumn."

"Or winter," added Frank, swallowing a pannikin of tea at a draught,
nodding to Chimo, as much as to say, "Do that if you can, old fellow,"
and handing it to Mrs Stanley to be replenished. "Don't omit winter--
cold, sharp, sunny winter. An encampment in the snow, in fine weather,
is as snug as this."

"Rather cold, is it not?" said Mrs Stanley.

"Cold! not a bit," replied Frank, making a reckless dive with his hand
into the biscuit-bag; "if you have enough wood to get up a roaring fire,
six feet long by three broad and four deep, with a bank of snow five
feet high all around ye, a pine-tree with lots of thick branches
spreading overhead to keep off the snow, and two big green blankets to
keep out the frost--(another leg of that widgeon, please)--you've no
notion how snug it is, I assure you."

"Hum!" ejaculated Stanley, with a dubious smile, "you forgot to add--a
youthful, robust frame, with the blood careering through the veins like
wildfire, to your catalogue of requi