“Well, this lamp is as good as new.  That’s some comfort,” said Tabitha.

“A lamp!” thought Peter.  “That indicates light on my researches.”

For the present Peter felt more inclined to ponder on this discovery than to resume his labors.  After Tabitha had gone down stairs he stood poring over the parchment at one of the front windows, which was so obscured with dust that the sun could barely throw an uncertain shadow of the casement across the floor.  Peter forced it open and looked out upon the great street of the town, while the sun looked in at his old house.  The air, though mild, and even warm, thrilled Peter as with a dash of water.

It was the first day of the January thaw.  The snow lay deep upon the housetops, but was rapidly dissolving into millions of water-drops, which sparkled downward through the sunshine with the noise of a summer shower beneath the eaves.  Along the street the trodden snow was as hard and solid as a pavement of white marble, and had not yet grown moist in the spring-like temperature.  But when Peter thrust forth his head, he saw that the inhabitants, if not the town, were already thawed out by this warm day, after two or three weeks of winter weather.  It gladdened him—­a gladness with a sigh breathing through it—­to see the stream of ladies gliding along the slippery sidewalks with their red cheeks set off by quilted hoods, boas and sable capes like roses amidst a new kind of foliage.  The sleigh bells jingled to and fro continually, sometimes announcing the arrival of a sleigh from Vermont laden with the frozen bodies of porkers or sheep, and perhaps a deer or two; sometimes, of a regular marketman with chickens, geese and turkeys, comprising the whole colony of a barn-yard; and sometimes, of a farmer and his dame who had come to town partly for the ride, partly to go a-shopping and partly for the sale of some eggs and butter.  This couple rode in an old-fashioned square sleigh which had served them twenty winters and stood twenty summers in the sun beside their door.  Now a gentleman and lady skimmed the snow in an elegant car shaped somewhat like a cockle-shell; now a stage-sleigh with its cloth curtains thrust aside to admit the sun dashed rapidly down the street, whirling in and out among the vehicles that obstructed its passage; now came round a corner the similitude of Noah’s ark on runners, being an immense open sleigh with seats for fifty people and drawn by a dozen horses.  This spacious receptacle was populous with merry maids and merry bachelors, merry girls and boys and merry old folks, all alive with fun and grinning to the full width of their mouths.  They kept up a buzz of babbling voices and low laughter, and sometimes burst into a deep, joyous shout which the spectators answered with three cheers, while a gang of roguish boys let drive their snow-balls right among the pleasure-party.  The sleigh passed on, and when concealed by a bend of the street was still audible by a distant cry of merriment.