The horses soon reached a point, where they seemed to know by instinct that their journey was nearly ended, and, bearing on the bits, as they tossed their heads, uneasily, up and down, they rapidly drew the sleigh over the level land, which lay on the top of the mountain, and soon came to the point where the road descended suddenly, but circuitously, into the valley.
The Judge was roused from his reflections, when he saw the four columns of dense smoke, which floated along the air from his own chimneys. As house, village, and valley burst on his sight, he exclaimed cheerfully to his daughter—
"See, Bess, there is thy resting-place for life! And thine too, young man, if thou will consent to dwell with us."
The eyes of the youth and maiden involuntarily met, as the Judge, in the warmth of his feelings, thus included them in an association which was to endure so long; and if the deepening colour, that, notwithstanding her hood, might be seen gathering over the face even to the forehead of Elizabeth, was contradicted in its language by the proud expression of her eye, the scornful but covert smile that again played about the lips of the stranger, seemed equally to deny the probability of his consenting to form one of this family group. The scene was one, however, which might easily warm a heart less given to philanthropy than that of Marmaduke Temple.
The side of the mountain, on which our travellers were journeying, though not absolutely perpendicular, was yet so steep as to render great care necessary in descending the rude and narrow path, which, in that early day, wound along the precipices. The negro reined in his impatient steeds, and time was given to Elizabeth to dwell on a scene which was so rapidly, altering
