'Nature keeps them tolerably close most of that time,' remarked Arthur, 'by building a couple of yards of ice over them. From November till April they're under lock and key.'
'And han't you ever fished through holes in the ice?' asked Mr. Holt. 'Capital sport, I can tell you, with a worm for bait.'
'No; but I was going to say, how curiously thin and weak the trout are just when the ice melts. They've been on prison allowance, I presume, and are ready to devour anything.'
During all the evening, though Linda took openly a considerable share in the conversation, her mind would beat back on one question, suggested repeatedly: 'Why did Mr. Sam Holt go to Europe?' for one item of news brought by to-day's arrival was, that his eldest son had suddenly been seized with a wish to visit England, and had gone in the last boat from Halifax.
Glancing up at some remark, she encountered Mrs. Wynn's eyes, and coloured deeply. That sweetest supervision of earth, a mother's loving look, had read more deeply than the daughter imagined. Rising hurriedly, on some slight excuse, she went to the window and looked out.
'Oh, papa! such glorious northern lights!'
Ay, surely. Low arcs of dazzling light stretched from east to west across the whole breadth of the heavens; whence coruscated, in prolonged flashes, gorgeous streamers of every colour, chiefly of pale emerald green, pink, and amber.
'A rich aurora for this season of the year,' remarked Hiram Holt. 'Those that are brightly coloured generally appear in autumn or spring.'
'Oh, yes,' said George; 'do you recollect how magnificent was one we had while the fall-wheat was planting? the sky was all crimson, with yellow streamers.'
'Do you know what the Indians think about auroras?' asked Mr. Holt. 'They believe that these flashes are the spirits of the dead dancing before the throne of the Manitou, or Great Spirit.'