It was early in December. There had been a severe and still increasing snow-storm for the two previous days; the earth was deeply covered; and a strong biting gale from the north-east was now drifting the snow half-way up the side-walls of the manse. The distant hills rose like so many shrouded spectres over the dark and melancholy sea--their heads enveloped in broken wreaths of livid cloud; nature lay dead; and the very firmament, blackened with tempest, seemed a huge burial vault. The wind shrieked and wailed like an unhappy spirit among the turrets and chimneys of the old castle. Dallas undid the covering of the shot-hole that looked down on the manse, and then hastily shutting it, flung himself on his bed, where he lay with his face folded in the bedclothes. Ere he had risen, the shades of evening, deepened by a furious snow-shower, had set in. He again unbolted the shot-hole and looked out. The flakes flew so thickly that they obscured every nearer object, and wholly concealed the more remote: even the manse had disappeared; but there was a faint gleam of light flickering in that direction through the shower; and as the air cleared, the chaplain could see that it proceeded from two lighted candles placed in one of the windows. Dreading he knew not what, he descended the turret stair, and on entering the hall found one of the domestics, an elderly woman, preparing to quit it. “This,” he said, addressing her, “is surely no night for going abroad, Martha?” “Ah, no!” replied the woman, “but I am going to the manse; there is distress there. Mary Anderson died this morning, and it will be a thin lykewake.” “Mary Anderson! thin lykewake!” said Dallas, repeating her words as if unconscious of their meaning: “I’ll go with you.” And, as if moved by some impulse merely mechanical, he followed the woman.