ur wakening!"

"I would rather have you, father; that is, if it is not wicked to say
so. But I am very often wicked, I think," she added, remorsefully.

William Douglas smiled, closed the organ, and, throwing his arm round
his tall young daughter, walked with her down the aisle toward the door.

"But you have forgotten your cloak," said Anne, running back to get it.
She clasped it carefully round his throat, drew the peaked hood over his
head, and fastened it with straps of deer's hide. Her own fur cloak and
cap were already on, and thus enveloped, the two descended the dark
stairs, crossed the inner parade-ground, passed under the iron arch, and
made their way down the long sloping path, cut in the cliff-side, which
led from the little fort on the height to the village below. The
thermometer outside the commandant's door showed a temperature several
degrees below zero; the dry old snow that covered the ground was
hardened into ice on the top, so that boys walked on its crust above the
fences. Overhead the stars glittered keenly, like the sharp edges of
Damascus blades, and the white expanse of the ice-fields below gave out
a strange pallid light which was neither like that of sun nor of moon,
of dawn nor of twilight. The little village showed but few signs of life
as they turned into its main street; the piers were sheets of ice.

Nothing wintered there; the summer fleets were laid up in the rivers
farther south, where the large towns stood on the lower lakes. The
shutters of the few shops had been tightly closed at sunset, when all
the inhabited houses were tightly closed also; inside there were
curtains, sometimes a double set, woollen cloth, blankets, or skins,
according to the wealth of the occupants. Thus housed, with great fires
burning in their dark stoves, and one small lamp, the store-keepers
waited for custom until nine o'clock, after which time hardly any one
stirred abroad, unless it was some warm-blooded youth, who defied the
elements with the only power which can make us forget them.

At times, early in the evening, the door of one of these shops opened,
and a figure entered through a narrow crack; for no islander opened a
door widely--it was giving too much advantage to the foe of his life,
the weather. This figure, enveloped in furs or a blanket, came toward
the stove and warmed its hands with deliberation, the merchant meanwhile
remaining calmly seated; then, after some moments, it threw back its
h