chaise stopped at the gate. It was in a heavy, magnificent old style,
of iron bars, fancifully wrought at top into flourishes and flowers.
The huge square columns that supported the gate were surmounted by the
family crest. Close adjoining was the porter's lodge, sheltered under
dark fir-trees, and almost buried in shrubbery.

The post-boy rang a large porter's bell, which resounded through the
still, frosty air, and was answered by the distant barking of dogs,
with which the mansion-house seemed garrisoned. An old woman immediately
appeared at the gate. As the moonlight fell strongly upon her, I had
full view of a little primitive dame, dressed very much in the antique
taste, with a neat kerchief and stomacher, and her silver hair peeping
from under a cap of snowy whiteness. She came curtseying forth, with
many expressions of simple joy at seeing her young master. Her husband,
it seems, was up at the house keeping Christmas eve in the servants'
hall; they could not do without him, as he was the best hand at a song
and story in the household.

My friend proposed that we should alight and walk through the park to
the hall, which was at no great distance, while the chaise should follow
on. Our road wound through a noble avenue of trees, among the naked
branches of which the moon glittered as she rolled through the deep
vault of a cloudless sky. The lawn beyond was sheeted with a slight
covering of snow, which here and there sparkled as the moonbeams caught
a frosty crystal; and at a distance might be seen a thin, transparent
vapour, stealing up from the low grounds, and threatening gradually to
shroud the landscape.

My companion looked round him with transport:--"How often," said he,
"have I scampered up this avenue, on returning home on school vacations!