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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