DECEMBER. 
"MID ICY SEAWEED. 
Q* the one hand, far as the eye could see, 
rose a white tablecloth of speckless 
snow ; on the other a bottle-green sea, cold, 
and crisped with the froth of ‘white horses ;’ 
and over all hung a low canopy of leaden- 
hued sky. 
The waves bounded up the pebbly beach 
with a roar and a rush, and fell back, leaving 
the stones glistening in the freezing air. They 
were the only things which made any sound. 
All else was still as death, as though petrified. 
Then upon the silence there fell a harsh, 
little noise, rather as if one pebble had 
been dropped on another. An especially big 
wave floundered up the beach, and it was as 
if it had tossed into the air a particularly big, 
brown leaf, which was blown away by the 
knife-edged nor’-east wind, only to fall again 
on the tide-line. 
It is strange, though, how Nature manages 
to hide her children in such bleak times. 
Looking closely, one would have seen that 
something was moving where the leaf had 
