Their bed of freshly gathered grass and leaves, raised from the earth by a heap of branches carefully arranged, was to them as pleasant as beds of down, and the rude hut of bark and poles, as curtains of silk or damask.
Having collected as much of these materials as she deemed sufficient for the purpose, Catharine next gathered up dry oak branches, plenty of which lay scattered here and there, to make a watch-fire for the night, and this done, weary and warm, she sat down on a little hillock, beneath the cooling shade of a grove of young aspens, that grew near the hut; pleased with the dancing of the leaves, which fluttered above her head, and fanned her warm cheek with their incessant motion, she thought, like her cousin Louise, that the aspen was the merriest tree in the forest, for it was always dancing, dancing, dancing, even when all the rest were still.
She watched the gathering of the distant thunder-clouds, which cast a deeper, more sombre shade upon the pines that girded the northern shores of the lake as with an ebon frame.

Insensibly her thoughts wandered far away from the lonely spot whereon she sat, to the stoup _[FN: The Dutch word for verandah, which is still in common use among the Canadians.]_ in front of her father's house, and in memory's eye she beheld it all exactly as she had left it.

There stood the big spinning wheel, just as she had set it aside; the hanks of dyed yarn suspended from the rafters, the basket filled with the carded wool ready for her work.

She saw in fancy her father, with his fine athletic upright figure, his sunburnt cheeks and clustering sable hair, his clear energetic hazel eye ever beaming upon her, his favourite child, with looks of love and kindness as she moved to and fro at her wheel.
_[FN: Such is the method of working at the large wool wheel, unknown or obsolete in England.]_ There, too, was her mother, with her light step and sweet cheerful voice, singing as she pursued her daily avocations; and Donald and Kenneth driving up the cows to be milked, or chopping firewood.

And as these images, like the figures of the magic lantern, passed in all their living colours before her mental vision, her head drooped heavier and lower till it sunk upon her arm, and then she started, looked round, and slept again, her face deeply buried in her young bosom; and long and peacefully the young girl slumbered.
A sound of hurrying feet approaches, a wild cry is heard and panting breath, and the sleeper with a startling scream sprang to her feet: she dreamed that she was struggling in the fangs of a wolf--its grisly paws were clasped about her throat; the feeling was agony and suffocation--her languid eyes open.