WINTER WONDER 



wrought. After a night of sleet and storm, drenching 

 the dark world, the morning dawns fair, windless, and 

 bitterly cold. 



What unbelievable, magic metamorphosis, what 

 labor of Aladdin's lamp ! Your garden is changed 

 into a place of strung jewels and diamond lace work. 

 No tiny twig but bears a gem on its tip, no tracery of 

 branch or hanging vine but makes a mesh of intricate, 

 glittering glory, on which the sunbeams dance their 

 wildest saraband. Gleams of violet, rose, green, 

 and gold flash and vanish everywhere. No tree but is 

 sheathed in shining armor, and the hedges are fantas- 

 tically gorgeous with repousse of silver and chains of 

 burnished steel, while the eaves of the summer-house 

 are hung with endless icicles of different lengths. Each 

 little seed-cup is charged to the brim with frozen liquid, 

 and tiny, glittering tassels swing on every grass-stalk. 



Stand where the sun shines through a canopy of 

 crystal branches and look about you at the miraculous 

 garden, in its robe of a fairy queen. You will be 

 tempted to think it even more beautiful than when 

 June tossed her lapful of roses into it. How blue lie 

 the shadows on the snow yonder under the shimmering 

 spruces. How pellucidly clear and immortally fresh 

 is the air, full of diamond flashings, as though a 

 myriad tiny star-sprites were fluttering their wings. 



It is intoxicating. But, more's the pity, it is terrify- 

 ing, too ! For, should a wind come before that mag- 



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