Occasionally a more animated scene presents itself; distant echo gives out the faint sound of the hunting-horn, and the cry of hounds; suddenly a frightened deer bursts from the neighbouring forest, stands for a few seconds in terrified alarm upon the frozen plain, then darts onward, and is quickly lost amid the thickets on the opposite side. The trampling of horses, the barking of dogs, are rapidly brought nearer by the breeze; and now, in their turn, a pack of dogs with brown and tawny-spotted skins issue from the brushwood from which the frightened deer but just now came; they run eagerly over the sterile ground, the fallow fields, with noses closely pointed to the ground they pursue with loud cries the traces left by the flying deer. At their heels come the hunters in their scarlet coats, bending over the necks of their swift steeds; they encourage their dogs by their voices mingled with the notes of the horn. Swift as lightning the brilliant cortège passes on; the noise decreases; by degrees all is still; dogs, horses, and huntsmen are lost in the tangled mazes of the forest, where the frightened stag had sought and found a hiding-place. Then peace and calm resumed their reign; and the profound stillness of these vast plains was interrupted only by the monotonous song of the shepherd. These sights,--these rustic views abounded in the environs of the village of Bouqueval, which, spite of its proximity to Paris, was situated in a sort of desert, to which there was no approach except by cross-roads. Concealed during the summer among the trees, like a nest amid the sheltering foliage, the farm which had become the home of the poor Goualeuse was now utterly bereft of its leafy screen, and entirely exposed to view. The course of the little river, now quite frozen over, resembled a long silver riband stretched along the ever verdant meadows, through which a number of fine cows were leisurely wending their way to their stable. Brought home by the approach of night, flocks of pigeons were successively arriving, and perching on the peaked roof of the dove-house; while the immense walnut-tree, that during the summer afforded an umbrageous screen both to the farmhouse and its numerous out-buildings, stripped of its rich foliage, exhibited only bare branches, through which could plainly be discerned the tiled roof of the one, and the thatched tops of the others, overgrown with patches of moss of mingled green and dingy brown.