X 



WINTER 



THE GARDEN OF BOOKS 



December 3. Winter has come in a single night, 

 the picturesque winter of Christmas cards wrapped 

 snugly in ermine robes and travelling to the jingle of 

 sleigh bells. It is only occasionally that he travels in 

 this guise, more often coming as gaunt Black Frost 

 with the northwind for pace-maker, trampling the 

 naked fields with mailed feet, freezing the very pith 

 of the leafless trees, numbing the huddled birds as 

 they glean seed in the furrows, and making us feel 

 the hopeless cruelty of Nature's sterner moods when 

 unassuaged by human kindness. 



However fickle our climate may be, it is never 

 monotonous, and so after three open, or at least 

 snowless winters, to-morrow many sleighs will be let 

 down from the lofts where they were fast sinking into 

 Rip van Winkle sleep, while wolf skins and buffalo 

 robes, the relics of a vanished tribe, will leave the 

 camphor chests, and again see the light of day. 

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