were heard at a distance, and the illuminated snow which lay beneath the windows was peopled with shadows moving over it, as one group after another passed out, anxious to obtain a view up the lane.
A knock at the nearest front door put us to flight. Three young gentlemen entered and found us sitting primly around the quilt, each with a thimble on and earnestly at work, like so many birds in a cherry-tree. Again the knocker resounded through the house, as if the lion’s head that formed it were set to howling by the huge mass of iron belabouring it so unmercifully. Another relay of guests, heralded in by a gush of frosty wind from the entry, was productive of some remarkably long stitches and rather eccentric patterns on the “rising sun,” which, probably, may be pointed out as defects upon its disc to this day. Our fingers became more hopelessly tremulous, for some of the gentlemen bent over us as we worked, and a group gathered before the fire, shutting out the blaze from the huge mirror, which seemed gloomy and discontented at the loss of its old playmate, though a manly form slyly arranging its collar and a masculine hand thrust furtively through a mass of glossy hair did, now and then, glance over its darkened surface.
The lion’s head at the door continued its growls, sleigh-bells jingled in the lane, smiles, and light and half-whispered compliments circulated within doors. Every heart was brim full of pleasurable excitement, and but one thing was requisite to the general happiness—the appearance of Old Ben, dear old black Ben, the village fiddler. Again the lion-knocker gave a single growl, a dying hoarse complaint, as if it were verging from the lion rampant to the lion couchant. All our guests were assembled except the doctor; it must be he or Cousin Rufus, with Old Ben. A half score of sparkling eyes grew brighter. There was a heavy stamping of feet in the entry, which could have arisen from no single person. The door opened, and Cousin Rufus appeared, and beyond him, still in the dusk, stood the fiddler, with a huge bag of green baize in his hand, which rose up and down as the old negro deliberately stamped the snow, first from one heavy boot, then from the other, and, regardless of our eager glances, turned away into
