the sky, and only in the west was there a gleam of the departing
winter day.

Upon the elevated bank of the stream, opposite to the road by which they
approached, they saw a group of people--perhaps twenty-drawn closely
together, either in the sympathy of segregation from an unfeeling world,
or for protection from the keen wind. On the hither bank, and leaning on
the rails of the drive, had collected a motley crowd of spectators, men,
women, and boys, who exhibited some impatience and much curiosity,
decorous for the most part, but emphasized by occasional jocose remarks
in an undertone. A serious ceremony was evidently in progress. The
separate group had not a prosperous air. The women were thinly clad for
such a day. Conspicuous in the little assembly was a tall, elderly man in
a shabby long coat and a broad felt hat, from under which his white hair
fell upon his shoulders. He might be a prophet in Israel come out to
testify to an unbelieving world, and the little group around him, shaken
like reeds in the wind, had the appearance of martyrs to a cause. The
light of another world shone in their thin, patient faces. Come, they
seemed to say to the worldlings on the opposite bank--come and see what
happiness it is to serve the Lord. As they waited, a faint tune was
started, a quavering hymn, whose feeble notes the wind blew away of
first, but which grew stronger.

Before the first stanza was finished a carriage appeared in the rear of
the group. From it descended a middle-aged man and a stout woman, and
they together helped a young girl to alight. She was clad all in white.
For a moment her thin, delicate figure shrank from the cutting wind.
Timid, nervous, she glanced an instant at the crowd and the dark icy
stream; but it was only a protest of the poor body; the face had the
rapt, exultant look of joyous sacrifice.

The tall man advanced to meet her, and led her into the midst of the
group.

For a few moments there was prayer, inaudible at a distance. Then the
tall man, taking the girl by the hand, advanced down the slope to the
stream. His hat was laid aside, his venerable locks streamed in the
breeze, his eyes were turned to heaven; the girl walked as in a vision,
without a tremor, her wide-opened eyes fixed upon invisible things. As
they moved on, the group behind set up a joyful hymn in a kind of
mournful chant, in which the tall man joined with a strident voice.
Fitfully the words came on the wind, in an almo