The trees were heavily laden with snow, which they shook down upon us as we brushed along beneath their low-bending branches. In the dim twilight they assumed every variety of fanciful form. There were gaunt old trees, with gnarled and twisted branches, outstretched like arms in deadly Laocoon-like struggle with the writhing winds and storms; there were delicate birches, each slender twig bearing its feathery burden; and there were spruces and hemlocks, regal in snowy splendor. It lay upon them in heavy masses, and gave their bending boughs a still more graceful dip. There was something which harmonized with my grief in the silent snow and the drooping trees. They sank beneath the snow as the human heart sinks beneath its burden of sorrow. Yet it fell gently and beautifully upon them, as affliction falls from the hand of our Father, 'who chasteneth whom he loveth.' One tree, which bent completely over in a perfect abandonment of grief, particularly impressed me. There was something in the sweep of the branches which suggested the utter prostration of the heart beneath the first shock of a great affliction. How still it was! It was not dark, for the moon had risen, and the clouds were thin. The snow, too, made it lighter. It was at this solemn, awe-inspiring hour that my companions first learned the object of my journey. The sympathy with which they met me did honor to human nature. 'I thought,' said the Englishman, 'that the urgency of my own journey was great, but it is nothing compared to yours.' He apologized for any light or careless conversation in which they had indulged, not knowing the circumstances of my journey, and entered fully into the sentiment which had prompted me to undertake it. He assured me that he would see that I got through in time for the cars the next morning, and begged me to feel no further uneasiness about it. From that moment, both my companions were more assiduously devoted to my comfort than ever. Their interest was increased on finding that my father was the son of a well-known inventor. His history was soon told. He had inherited his father's business (now passed out of the family) with something of his mechanical talent. Of a confiding disposition, he had been wronged by those whom he had intrusted most extensively, and, property gone and strength failing, his misfortunes, which he had at all times borne with exemplary patience and fortitude, had culminated in the loss of his old home, the home of his father before him, by the hand of the incendiary. He had left me a precious legacy in his memory, to which my present journey was an inadequate tribute. The hours wore on. It did not grow much darker, but oh, it was so still! You could hear the stillness when the coach stopped, as occasionally it did.