220 IHature Studies in Berkshire. 



Of life-blood in the sharpened face, 

 The coming of the snowstorm told." 



The Taconic range had darkened with the clouds 

 until it was hard to recognise in that blue-black, 

 frowning mass, the hospitable and smiling slopes 

 which had invited our steps on so many summer 

 days. Mountains have very quick sympathies. They 

 respond as subtly as the sea to every shadow of a 

 change in the sky and the clouds. With this winter 

 twilight closing in, and heavy, black masses of vapour 

 hovering low about their summits, these sometime 

 cheerful hills looked as dark and gloomy as an abode 

 of blue devils, a haunted realm peopled by the spirits 

 of care and trouble. 



The night fulfilled the promise of the afternoon. 

 Quietly but steadily until morning the snow fell, and 

 with the dawn stood six inches deep upon a level, 

 good for many days of sleighing. It was with the 

 elation of one who has discovered the thing he has 

 been long seeking that 1 climbed into my host's sleigh, 

 and behind the same fine roadsters which had made 

 light work of many a summer mile, went bowling 

 along in a glorious winter outing. It is amazing to 

 think how little winter is known or appreciated by 

 the incorrigible cockney, and how little he realises 

 the variety, the interest, and the healthfulness of out- 

 door life under the sign of the Crab. To-day, for 

 example, one could find nearly all his large wild- 

 flower friends of the summer days, grown brown and 

 old indeed, but plainly to be recognised. The golden- 



