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perceived a mass of snow breaking down towards the 

 east, on which she went back into the stable, shut the 

 door, and told her sister of it. In less than three mi- 

 nutes they heard the roof break over their heads, and 

 also part of the ceiling of the stable. The sister ad- 

 vised her to get into the rack and manger, which she did 

 very carefully. The ass was tied to the manger, but got 

 loose by struggling 5 and though it did not break the 

 manger, it threw down the little vessel which the sister 

 took up, and used afterwards to hold the melted snow, 

 which served them for drink. Very happily, the man- 

 ger 'vas under the main prop of the stable, and thereby 

 resisted the weight of the snow. Their first care was to 

 know what they had to eat ; the sister had- in her 

 pockets fifteen chesnuts: the children said they had 

 breakfasted, and should want no more that day. They' 

 remembered there were 30 or 40 loaves in a place near 

 the stable, and endeavoured to get at them, but were 

 not able, by reason of the snow. On this they called 

 out for help as loudly as they could, but no one heard 

 them. The sister came again to the manger, after she 

 had tried in vain to come at the loaves, gave two ches- 

 nuts to the wife, and eat two herself, and they drank 

 some snow water. All this while the ass continued 

 kicking, and the goats bleated very much, but soon after, 

 they heard no more of them. Two of the goats how- 

 ever were left alive, and were near the manger, they felt 

 them carefully, and knew by so doing, that one of them 

 was big, and would kid about the middle of April ; 

 the other gave milk, wherewith they preserved their 

 lives. 



The women affirmed, lhat during all the time they 

 were buried, they saw not one ray of light ; neverthe- 

 less, for about twenty days, they had some notion of night 

 and day : for when the fowls crowed, they imagined it 

 was break of day, but at last the fowls died. The se- 

 cond day, being very hungry, they eat all the remaining 

 chesnuts, and drank what milk the goat yielded, which 

 for the first days, was near two pounds a day, but the 

 quantity decreased gradually. The third day, being 



