TWO VIEWS THROUGH WINTER SUN- 

 SHINE. 



SATURDAY and Sunday, the middle days 

 of February, were filled to the brim with spar- 

 kling winter sunshine. The heavens were swept 

 clean of clouds by a rush of cold dry air from 

 the birthplace of the Great Glacier. The 

 ground was like granite, and was well covered 

 with the snow that crunches under foot like pul- 

 verized quartz. 



I spent Saturday afternoon on the highest 

 part of the Belmont-Arlington ridge, and the 

 world, seen from those wind-swept heights, 

 seemed made of cleaner, brighter stuff than 

 when touched on the flats below. There are 

 clear days in summer, but they are not so abso- 

 lutely clear as the clearest days in winter. I 

 never saw a more perfectly transparent air than 

 that which raced across New England on that 

 Saturday. The vision was not checked by dis- 

 tance or by vapor ; only by the curve of Mother 

 Earth's cheek. 



Looking eastward from the heights, the eye 

 passed over the Fell country of Medford and 



