Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/261

 and vanishing "into thin air," while the thermometer is down in the zeros.

This evaporation at low temperatures is constantly taking place before our eyes, to our advantage. On wash-days the clothes are hung on lines stretched across the ship's rigging, or upon poles across the ice, as you will see on Monday afternoons in the farmhouse yards; and before the week is over the moisture has disappeared, no matter how cold it may be.

January 16th.

Our eyes now turn wistfully to the south, eagerly watching for the tip of Aurora's chariot, as the fair goddess of the morning rises from the sea to drop a ray of gladness from her rosy fingers into this long-neglected world.

It is almost a month since we passed the darkest day of the winter, and it will be a long time yet before we have light; but it is time for us now to have at noontime a faint flush upon the horizon. We find a new excitement, if such it may be called, in the impatience of expectation. Meanwhile I pet my fox.

Birdie has become quite tame, and does great credit to her instructor. She is the most cunning; creature that was ever seen, and does not make a bad substitute for the General. She takes the General's place at my table, as she has his place in my affections; but she sits in my lap, where the General never was admitted, and, with her delicate little paws on the cloth, she makes a picture. Why, she is indeed a perfect little gourmande, well bred, too, and clever. When she takes the little morsels into her mouth her eyes sparkle with delight, she wipes her lips, and looks up at me with a coquetterie that is perfectly irresistible. The