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Away into the winter prospect. There are many such upon the tree! On, by low-lying, misty grounds, through fens and fogs, up long hills, winding dark as caverns between thick plantations, almost shutting out the sparkling stars; so, out on broad heights, until we stop at last, with sudden silence, at an avenue. The gate-bell has a deep, half-awful sound in the frosty air; the gate swings open on its hinges; and, as we drive up to a great house, the glancing lights grow larger in the windows, and the pposing rows of trees seem to fall solemnly back on either side, to give us place. At intervals, all day, a frightened hare has hotacross this whitened turf; or the distant clatter of a herd of deer trampling the hard frost, has, for the minute, crushed the ilence too. Their watchful eyes beneath the fern may be shining now, if we could see them, like the icy dewdrops on the leaves;but they are still, and all is still. And so, the lights growing larger, and the trees falling back before us, and closing up gain behind us, as if to forbid retreat, we come to the house.
From "A Christmas Tree" by Charles Dickens
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