m a bird;
but she had but a faint, a dream-like remembrance of the scenes
connected with her early childhood.

It was a cold afternoon in December--cold even for that ice-clad
month. Dark, gloomy, stern-browed winter had spread his varied
desolations around. The first snow of the season had fallen during the
night previous, and lay upon the ground to the depth of several
inches, in some places, drifted into the ravines, leaving the
declivities almost entirely uncovered, and at others, overspreading
the soil with an unruffled sheet of stainless white. The winds had
awakened from their August slumbers, and blustered and shrieked
dismally through the leafless forests, then sweeping out among the
houses, sought entrance, but finding none, flung themselves
despairingly against the doors, and mocked at the clattering windows,
which every now and then threatened to burst from their casements;
anon, swept moaning around the corners, now muttering, and now
whispering at the crevices, then passing up toward the eaves, died
away in sobbings and wailings. Even the dark blue cerulean wore a
chilly aspect; and the huge masses of heavy, leaden-colored clouds
that piled themselves up so quaintly over by the lofty-peaked,
snow-capt mountains, drifted wildly before every impulse of the
ice-winged lord of the storm.

Late on this afternoon a solitary traveler on horseback might have
been seen winding slowly along the serpentine road that led over the
hill above the falls. This traveler was David White. At his heart,
were the same fierce and turbulent passions--the same dark thoughts
and bad feelings--the same willful and perverse nature that dwelt
there, when I left him, ten years ago, forsaking home and happiness;
time had only served to deepen the impressions, and crime almost
entirely to blot out the few remaining influences of a religious
education, while the vicious impulses strengthened. But, in person, he
was greatly changed. From the stripling he had become the man. A half
sneer was on his countenance as in boyhood; and the same restless,
wicked eye lighted up his features with an evil fire. It was a face
that told the wily hypocrite--the man who could assume any character
he chose--now, high-minded and honorable, and again, crime-seeking and
fiendish, just as circumstances required. The cheeks were thin and
sunken, and the deep pallor which had stolen away the rosy tints of
health, plainly showed a course of continual dissipat