Bess looked about for her cousin and his boon companions, who were nowhere to be seen, and then watched her friend, who was moving away alone, her swaying figure outlined against the ruddy sunset. Then, refusing all offers of assistance, she struggled up the pond, against the strong wind that nearly blew her backward. Half-way up the ice she paused, stood for a moment to catch her breath, and then, with the breeze, helping her, lazily slid back, almost to the dam at the lower end of the ice. This performance she repeated several times, greatly to her own satisfaction. At length, she had stopped to speak to a friend, when a sound of mingled scraping and shouting made them both raise their eyes, and glance up the ice. A peculiar apparition was bearing down upon them, as they stood there in the gathering twilight. At first, they could make out little but its outline, but as it came rushing nearer, it was revealed in all its splendor. Four sleds, two red, one yellow, and one blue, had been lashed together, two in front, two behind, and covered with a sort of platform of boards, from the front of which rose a complicated system of
