YESTERDAY the world was enveloped in 

 dreariness and mist; to-day jewel-lights 

 flash out on every side. From the tiniest shrub 

 to the tallest pine, come sparkle and glitter and 

 dazzling glow. Each tree-trunk is diamond- 

 veneered by the frost; each spruce-cone glitters 

 to the point of every scale; each cluster of pine- 

 needles is held at its tip by a jewel-clasp. Fringes 

 of diamonds hang from arbors and eaves of 

 dwellings, opalescent lights play around empty 

 nests, and where, only yesterday, a bit of rag 

 drooped from one of these deserted homes, like 

 a signal of distress, a jewelled pennant now ap- 

 pears. Here glows a topaz, yonder gleams a 

 ruby, and on beyond, through a tangle of dia- 

 mond-coated twigs, an emerald flashes and an 



