The tale drew near its close.
The moon was bright on high; the blue firmament appeared to glow
with an inherent brightness; the greater stars were burning in their
spheres; the northern lights threw their mysterious glare far over the
horizon; the few small clouds aloft were burdened with radiance; but
the sky, with all its variety of light, was scarcely so brilliant as
the earth. The rain of the preceding night had frozen as it fell, and,
by that simple magic, had wrought wonders. The trees were hung with
diamonds and many-colored gems; the houses were overlaid with
silver, and the streets paved with slippery brightness; a frigid glory
was flung over all familiar things, from the cottage chimney to the
steeple of the meetinghouse, that gleamed upward to the sky. This
living world, where we sit by our firesides, or go forth to meet
beings like ourselves, seemed rather the creation of wizard power,
with so much of the resemblance to known objects that a man might
shudder at the ghostly shape of his old beloved dwelling, and the
shadow of a ghostly tree before his door.
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