i 7 d 
CHILDREN'S GARDENS 
VI 
much employment out of doors. After a night 
of howling wind there may be some poor 
creeper to fasten up, or broken sticks and 
branches to clear away. Then comes sooner 
or later a clear, still evening when the sun sets 
like a ball of fire, and we know that “Jack 
Frost,” who has only peeped at the garden 
during the night hitherto, has come to make 
a stay. If your tender plants have not had 
shelter before they must have it then. Any¬ 
thing you can collect—dead leaves, dry bracken, 
fir branches, straw, or whatever has been pre¬ 
pared as a winter coat—must now be put on 
without delay, and might be enough to save 
a plant which would otherwise perish in the 
night. 
Next morning the world seems changed to 
fairyland. Every branch, every blade of grass, 
is decked with a myriad white crystals, spark¬ 
ling with all the colours of the rainbow, and 
the pond looks deep and still with its shining 
surface of clear, dark ice. It is a world of such 
beauty that no art can excel or even approach 
it. But I must confess to you, children, that I, 
as a child, with my little sisters, used to try 
to reproduce in miniature one of those lovely 
frosted trees. The Christmas holidays were 
just the time for such experiments, and we 
imagined a small branch of a tree was a good 
