xvni RIVERSIDE LETTERS 137 



when it melts and comes through the bed- 

 room ceilings. 



In the garden you may find one morning, 

 as I did lately, an old wall blown down by 

 the gale, covering with its debris a favourite 

 strawberry bed ; or a large limb from a 

 walnut tree fallen on the tops of some 

 gooseberry bushes. Your work will be cut 

 out pretty well for you sometimes in relieving 

 evergreens and other things from the crushing 

 weight of snow with which they get laden. 



As to keeping appointments with distant 

 neighbours, or taking your children to the 

 little festive gatherings to which they have 

 been invited, the difficulties of a moonless 

 night and deep snow in a state of thaw can 

 be readily imagined. A thunderstorm in 

 town makes a noise, and the deluge of rain, 

 which accompanies it, is inconvenient, but in 

 the country when you are told that six 

 bullocks have been struck dead by one flash 

 of lightning in a meadow at no great distance 

 from your house, or see a tree by the side of 



