EDITOR'S TABLE, 



niQiht. The next morning was clear and frosty beyond anything in my youthful memory. Such 

 brilliance! my imagination, aided by descriptive readings, was tame — was nothing. The snow 

 so softly falling had congealed on blade, and leaf, and stem, sometime scarcely changed, its feath- 

 ery outline only becoming clear and crisp. Elsewhere they had melted and hung in glittering 

 drops and icicles from limb and branch. Cousin, how can I tell it to you! I absolutely have no 

 language! I was enchanted and excited, and laughed and cried in a breath. The dazzling, 

 glancing rays of early sunlight were reflected back and forth from bright points, glassy smooth- 

 nesses, and through beautiful prisms, ten thousand-thousand times, till the very air seemed to 

 dance and glisten. Everything which the sunbeam touched scintillated and gleamed. Diamond 

 sparks glittered, and gold splinters spangled and flashed up wherever the dancing rays quivered. 

 Tlie copse beyond the lawn, whose shadowy depths are impenetrable at this distance, was lighted 

 till we could see through it. A marble floor showed pure and fair between the dark uprising 

 shafts. Tlie bare boughs above gleamed as if a hundred lamps had lit up their dimness. Ah, 

 those aisles and columns, frescoed arches and groins of nature's own handiwork, with which no 

 art might vie ! I would tell you of little flowers peeping through the snow, chilled and icy — of 

 Monthly Roses and Chrysanthemums frozen and stiff", and a hundred other things, but you will 

 think me intoxicated, and verily I was. In a few hours this fairy splendor had vanished, and 

 everything looked black, withered and limpsy, and the ground was muddy and mucky, and peo- 

 ple with sublunary ideas began to query and speculate on the fate of the fruit-buds. I thought 

 I could willingly forego Peaches and Plums one year." 



Ah, cousin, such scenes are common here, and they are not always so evanescent as to be 

 quickly chased away by the approach of Sol. Then, too, we have the deep snows — the drifted 

 snows — in curl-crested waves and high banks, that you never have seen, and the wild borean 

 winds whose music your ears never greeted. 



Such homes as these cold winters make! — the long bright evenings, friendly circles, social 

 joys, household pleasures, cozy comforts, warning aff'ections, are the more enjoyed when so long 

 and closely housed. Pursuits and occupations grow to completeness, uninterrupted by the enti- 

 cing fixcinations of out-door summer life. IIow much easier when bound within the circle of our 

 own door-sills to concentrate the thoughts and fix them on reading and study. What a nice 

 time for building castles, and laying plans, and projecting great designs, that may, perchance, 

 melt away with the snow and ice. How contentedly we can stitch away hour after hour with 

 work-baskets beside us, when no birds, blossoms, or breezes are calling and coaxing us out. 



Does not this stern, cold climate tend to a greater development of industry and energy ? In 

 the short summer one must work busily and briskly, and learn to make the most of shining days, 

 soft air, and genial rays. There is a happiness in planning and storing up comfort and enjoy- 

 ment for the coming winter — the anticipations which are pretty sure to prove realities. There 

 is bravery and energy in daring the cold piercing winds, the driving storms when needs be, 

 which no life in soft airs and sunshine can call forth. 



Thus you see I am too philosophical to look back upon the beautiful home of my childhood 

 with longing eyes, but readily content mj'self in this busy, enterprising North-west. Elsie. 



