The postboy rang a large porter's bell, which resounded though
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 a 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 seemed,
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 vapor stealing up from
the low grounds and threatening gradually to shroud the
landscape.
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