1 6 Idylls of the Field. 



it lies as pure and stainless as the raiment of the 

 angels, the snow is the crowning glory of the winter. 



Marvellous is the skill of the Frost Spirit ; wonder- 

 ful the foliage of the forests that under his magical 

 fingers grow nightly on the frozen panes ; priceless 

 the pearls he strings upon the spider's web ; exquisite 

 the lacework with which he fringes grass, and fern, 

 and tree. 



But, with the snow, Nature transfigures all the land- 

 scape. At one sweep of her broad brush all the 

 clumsy touches with which man has marred the beauty 

 of the world are effaced. The ordered stiffness of the 

 hedgerow, the even line of the highway, are softened 

 down. The hills are rounded to a riper beauty. The 

 fields lie smooth, and white, and fair — an unwritten 

 page waiting as for the bold outlines of some new 

 design. 



What a wonder is there in its very fall ! when all the 

 air is filled with snow, carried. this way and that, never 

 with fixed purpose, never falling straight, but streaming 

 down from the silent sky that everywhere is full of 

 whirling snowflakes, with soft resistless touches hush- 

 ing half the noises of the world. 



How the wind drives headlong all the eddying 

 crowd ! Under the lee of the hedgerow filters through 

 a powdery stream that fills the roadway with the mimic 

 scenery of the Alps. The hedges are covered up, the 

 way-marks disappear, the roads are blotted out, huge 

 white mounds make new features in the landscape. 



