ait outside until I had
finished eating my supper. Then, with that deep self-satisfaction which
predominated in my soul, even over its appreciation of the novel and
amusing, I donned my seal-brown cloak, and stepping out of the door,
gathered up my skirts, and smiled at Mr. Lovell with a pair of seal-brown
eyes, and was not surprised to hear him ejaculate, coughing slightly;
"Ahem! _I_ think so, certainly, yes'm, _I_ think so; _I_ do."

Lovell's was the only sleigh in Wallencamp, and, as he informed me, it
was one that he had himself constructed. It had, indeed, already
suggested to my mind the workings of no ordinary intellect. Perhaps its
most impressive features were its lowness and its height--the general
lowness and length of its body, into which one could step easily, the
floor being covered with a carpet of straw, suggesting field-mice; and
the unusual height to which it rose in the back, being surmounted by two
glittering knobs, like those on the head-board of an old-fashioned
bedstead. Half-way down the back of this imposing structure the arms or
wings sprouted out, giving to the whole the appearance of an immense
Pterodactyl, or some other fossil bird of fabulous proportions, and
Effectually shutting in the occupants of the sleigh from any
Contemplation of the possible charms of the scenery. The seat was made
very low, and it was, perhaps, on this account that the horse seemed so
abnormally high. It was a white horse, and from our lowly position, there
seemed to be something awful and shadowy in the motions of its legs. The
red of sunset had not gone out of the sky when we started, and a pale
young moon was already getting up in the heavens, but we could see
neither fading sky nor rising moon, nor rock, nor tree, nor snowy
expanse, naught but the gigantic hoof-falls of our phantom steed.

Being thus hopelessly debarred from any communication with external
nature, and fearing to give myself up to my own thoughts, which were of a
somewhat dangerous character, I endeavored to engage my companion in
lively and cheerful converse by the way; but he was in a position of
actual physical suffering, for the reins were short--too short, that is,
to form a happy connecting link between him and the horse, and poor
Lovell was obliged to lean forward at an acute angle in order to grasp
them at all. Whenever the ghostly quadruped made a plunge forward, as he
not unfrequently did, Lovell was thrust violently down into the stra