It consisted of a boy and two girls, the eldest not
more than six, and lovely as seraphs. They were going the rounds of
the house, and singing at every chamber door; but my sudden appearance
frightened them into mute bashfulness. They remained for a moment
playing on their lips with their fingers, and now and then stealing
a shy glance from under their eyebrows, until, as if by one impulse,
they scampered away, and as they turned an angle of the gallery, I
heard them laughing in triumph at their escape.
Every thing conspired to produce kind and happy feelings in this
stronghold of old-fashioned hospitality. The window of my chamber
looked out upon what in summer would have been a beautiful
landscape. There was a sloping lawn, a fine stream winding at the foot
of it, and a track of park beyond, with noble clumps of trees, and
herds of deer. At a distance was a neat hamlet, with the smoke from
the cottage chimneys hanging over it; and a church with its dark spire
in strong relief against the clear, cold sky. The house was surrounded
with evergreens, according to the English custom, which would have
given almost an appearance of summer; but the morning was extremely
frosty; the light vapor of the preceding evening had been precipitated
by the cold, and covered all the trees and every blade of grass with
its fine crystallizations.
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