CHAPTER XVI.
It was fortunate for more than one of thee bacchanalians, who left the "Bold Dragoon" late in the evening, that the severe cold of the season was becoming, rapidly, less dangerous, as they threaded the different mazes, through the snow-banks, that led to their respective dwellings. Thin, driving clouds began, towards morning, to flit across the heavens, and the moon sat behind a volume of vapour, that was impelled furiously towards the north, carrying with it the softer atmosphere from the distant ocean. The rising sun was obscured by denser and increasing columns of clouds, while the southerly wind that rushed up the valley, brought the never failing symptoms of a thaw.
It was quite late in the morning, before Elizabeth, observing the faint glow which appeared on the eastern mountain, long after the light of the sun had struck the opposite hills, ventured from the house, with a view to gratify her curiosity with a glance by daylight at the surrounding objects, before the tardy revellers of the Christmas-
