st, the Five Sisters had acted as one family. Little
Miss Pix, reviewing the evening, as she dropped off to sleep, could not
help rubbing her hands together, and emitting little chuckles. Such a
delightful evening as she had had! and meaning to surprise others, she
had herself been taken into a better surprise still; and here,
recollecting the happy union of the lone, but not lonely, Mrs. Blake
with a child of her old age, as it were, Miss Pix must laugh aloud just
as the midnight clock was sounding. Bless her neighborly soul, she has
ushered in Christmas-day with her laugh of good-will toward men. The
whole hymn of the angels is in her heart; and with it let her sleep till
the glorious sunshine awakes her.

ICE AND ESQUIMAUX.

CHAPTER II.

THE ICE IN ITS GLORY.

_June 17._--On this anniversary of the Battle of Bunker's Hill we sailed
from Sleupe Harbor. Little Mecatina, with its blue perspective and
billowy surface, lifted itself up astern under flooding sunshine to tell
us that this relentless coast could have a glory of its own; but we
looked at it with dreamy, forgetful eyes, thinking of the dear land, now
all tossed into wild surge and crimson spray of war, which, how far
soever away, is ever present to the hearts of her true children.

Next day we dropped into the harbor of Caribou Island, a
mission-station, and left again on the 20th, after a quiet
Sunday,--Bradford having gone with others to church, and come back much
moved by the bronze-faced earnestness, and rough-voiced, deep-chested
hymning of the fisherman congregation. Far ahead we saw the strait full
of ice. Not that the ice itself could be seen; but the peculiar,
blue-white, vertical striae, which stuccoed the sky far along the
horizon, told experienced eyes that ice was there. Away to the right
towered the long heights of Newfoundland, intensely blue, save where,
over large spaces, they shone white with snow. They surprised us by
their great elevation, and by the sharp and straight escarpments with
which they descended. Here and there was a gorge cut through as with a
saw. We then took all this in good faith, on the fair testimony of our
eyes. But experience brought instruction,--as it will in superficial
matters, whether in deeper ones or no. In truth, this appearance was
chiefly a mirage caused by ice.

For, of all solemn prank-players, of all mystifiers and magicians, ice
is the greatest. Coming out of its silent and sovereign dreamlan