At length we came to a little settlement consisting of a half-dozen houses, one of which bore a sign on which we read the words _Hotel de France_. We kept on without stopping, and O'Halloran soon turned to the right, into a narrow track which went into the woods. In about half an hour we reached our destination. The sleighs drew up, and their occupants prepared for business. It was a small cleared space in the middle of the woods. The forest-trees arose all around, dim, gloomy, and dripping. The ground was dotted with decayed stumps, and covered with snow in a state of semi-liquefaction. Beneath all was wet; around all was wet; and above all was wet. The place with its surroundings was certainly the most dismal that I had ever seen, and the dank, dark, and dripping trees threw an additional gloom about it. We had left Quebec before seven. It was after twelve when we reached this place. "Well, me boy," said O'Halloran to me, with a gentle smile, "it's an onsaisonable toime of year for a jool, but it can't be helped--an' it's a moighty uncomfortable pleece, so it is." "We might have had it out in the road in a quiet way," said I, "without the trouble of coming here." "The road!" exclaimed O'Halloran. "Be the powers, I'd have been deloighted to have had it in me oun parrulor. But what can we do? Sure it's the barbarous legisleetin of this counthry, that throis to stoifle and raypriss the sintimints of honor, and the code of chivalry. Sure it's a bad pleece intoirely. But you ought to see it in the summer. It's the most sayquisthered localeetee that ye could wish to see." Saying this, O'Halloran turned to his friend and then to us. "Gintlemin," said he, "allow me to inthrojuice to ye me very particular friend, Mr. Murtagh McGinty." Mr. Murtagh McGinty rose and bowed, while we did the same, and disclosed the form of a tall, elderly, and rather dilapidated Irishman. All this time we had remained in our sleighs. The surrounding scene had impressed us all very forcibly, and there was a general disinclination to get out. The expanse of snow, in its half-melted condition, was enough to deter any reasonable being. To get out was to plunge into an abyss of freezing slush. A long discussion followed as to what ought to be done. Jack suggested trying the road; McGinty thought we might drive on farther. The doctor did not say any thing. At last O'Halloran solved the difficulty. He proposed that we should all remain in the sleighs, and that we should make a circuit so as to bring the backs of the sleighs at the requisite distance from one another.