ATTRACTIONS OF WINTER WEATHER 301 



are still the marvels of the connoisseur. -Sparkling in 

 the cold sunshine, it all looks cheerful enough as you 

 contemplate it from a comfortably warmed room, 

 unless, indeed, your soul be set upon hunting, and 

 your horses are fretting in their stalls. But even in 

 the country your pleasures may be dashed by re- 

 minders of the existence of suffering. There goes a 

 thinly-clad urchin under the windows, shrugging his 

 shoulders together, and blowing upon his frost-nipped 

 ringers. The birds are gathered into ragged balls on 

 the boughs ; the blackbirds and starlings are hopping 

 gingerly about on the lawn, like so many jackdaws of 

 Rheims, blighted under the ban of the church ; the 

 very tomtits seem limp and depressed ; while the 

 robins, pressed by the cravings of appetite, come 

 almost tapping at the windows as they ask for their 

 crumbs. After all, it may be hoped that the sufferings 

 of those country creatures are nothing worse than may 

 be endured and soon forgotten. These birds will be 

 fed from the breakfast-room windows, and there are 

 still hips and haws in the hedgerows for their fellows. 

 The boy has had a morning meal before turning out of 

 his cottage, and there are worse maladies in the world 

 than chilblains, while exercise will set youthful blood 

 in circulation. But your thoughts travel away to the 

 poor in the great towns, who must rise to fireless 

 hearths and shiver on short commons. After all, such 

 sufferings, like the poor themselves, will be always with 

 us, and in winter time the souls of the well-conditioned 

 must be exceptionally open to melting charity. If you 



