n just touched by the frosts are semi-transparent, and look like
pendent bunches of scarlet grapes.

I was tempted one fine frosty afternoon to take a walk with my husband
on the ice, which I was assured was perfectly safe. I must confess for
the first half-mile I felt very timid, especially when the ice is so
transparent that you may see every little pebble or weed at the bottom
of the water. Sometimes the ice was thick and white, and quite opaque.
As we kept within a little distance of the shore, I was struck by the
appearance of some splendid red berries on the leafless bushes that hung
over the margin of the lake, and soon recognized them to be the
aforesaid high-bush cranberries. My husband soon stripped the boughs of
their tempting treasure, and I, delighted with my prize, hastened home,
and boiled the fruit with some sugar, to eat at tea with our cakes. I
never ate any thing more delicious than they proved; the more so perhaps
from having been so long without tasting fruit of any kind, with the
exception of preserves, during our journey, and at Peterborough.

Soon after this I made another excursion on the ice, but it was not in
quite so sound a state. We nevertheless walked on for about three-
quarters of a mile. We were overtaken on our return by S------ with a
handsleigh, which is a sort of wheelbarrow, such as porters use, without
sides, and instead of a wheel, is fixed on wooden runners, which you can
drag over the snow and ice with the greatest ease, if ever so heavily
laden. S------ insisted that he would draw me home over the ice like a
Lapland lady on a sledge. I was soon seated in state, and in another
minute felt myself impelled forward with a velocity that nearly took
away my breath. By the time we reached the shore I was in a glow from
head to foot.

You would be pleased with the situation of our house. The spot chosen is
the summit of a fine sloping bank above the lake, distant from the
water's edge some hundred or two yards: the lake is not quite a mile
from shore to shore. To the south again we command a different view,
which will be extremely pretty when fully opened--a fine smooth basin of
water, diversified with beautiful islands, that rise like verdant groves
from its bosom. Below these there is a fall of some feet, where the
waters of the lakes, confined within a narrow channel between beds of
limestone, rush along with great impetuosity, foaming and dashing up the
spray in mimic clouds.