view, thousands, and tens of thousands of acres, that were yet tenanted only by the beasts of the forest. But such had been the will of her father, and such had also met the wishes of his followers. To them, the road, that made the most rapid approaches to the condition of the old, or, as they expressed it, the down countries, was the most pleasant; and surely nothing could look more like civilization, than a city, even if it lay in a wilderness! The width of the street, for so it was called, might have been one hundred feet; but the track for the sleighs was much more limited. On either side of the highway, were piled before the houses, huge heaps of logs that were daily increasing than diminishing in size, notwithstanding the enormous fires that might be seen, lighting every window through the dusk of the evening.
The last object at which Elizabeth had gazed when they renewed their journey, after the rencontre with Richard, was the sun, as it expanded in the refraction of the horizon, and over whose disk, the dark umbrage of a pine was stealing, while it slowly sunk behind the western hills. But his setting rays darted along the openings of the mountain she was on, and lighted the shining covering of the birches, until their smooth and glossy coats, nearly rivalled the mountain-sides in colour. The out-line of each dark pine was delineated far in the depths of the forest; and the rocks, too smooth and too perpendicular to retain the snow that had fallen, brightened, as if smiling in scorn, at the changes in the season. But at each step, as they descended. Elizabeth observed that they were leaving the day behind them. Even the heartless, but bright rays of a December sun, were missed, as they glided into the cold gloom of the valley. Along the summits of the mountains in the eastern range, it is true, that the light still lingered, reced-
