of the chimneys excellent ventilators,
and the air pure; and this summer house seated down amidst surrounding
cold, and boundless fields of snow,--it seems a miracle of comfort.

And then, this surrounding splendor and beauty,-the valley, and the
hills and mountains around,--the soft-falling snow, the starry crystals
descending through the still air,--the lights and shadows of morning and
evening,--this wondrous meteorology of winter--but you know all about
it. Really, I think some days that winter is more beautiful than summer.
Certainly I would not have it left out of my year. . . . "Aha! all is
rose-colored to him!" Well, nay, but it is literally [260] so. The white
hill opposite, looking like a huge snow-bank, only that it is checkered
with strips and patches of wood, dark as Indian-ink, is stained of that
color every clear afternoon, and rises up at sundown into a bank of
roseate or purple bloom all along above the horizon.

6th. I did n't get through last evening. No wonder, with so much heavy
stuff to carry. Did I ever write such a stupid letter before? Well, do
not say anything about it, but quickly cover it over with the mantle of
one of your charming epistles. It is not often that one has a chance
to show so much Christian generosity. Besides, consider that I do not
altogether despair of myself. I am reviving; and you don't know what a
letter I may write you one of these days, if you toll me along.

In the autumn his only son enlisted for nine months in the 49th
Massachusetts Regiment.

To his Daughters.

SHEFFIELD, Oct. 13, 1862.

MY DEAR GIRLS, Charles has enlisted. It was at a war-meeting at the
town-hall last evening. You have known his feelings, and perhaps will
not be surprised. I did not expect it, and must confess I was very much
shaken in spirit by it. But, arriving through some sleepless hours at a
calmer mood, I do not know that it is any greater sacrifice than we as a
family ought to make.

Although it will throw a great deal of care upon me, and there is all
this extra work to do, yet, that excepted, perhaps he could not go at
any better time than now. [261] It is for the winter, and nine months
is a fitter term for a family man, circumstanced as he is, than three
years; and this enlistment precludes all liability to future draft. This
is in the key of prudence; but I do think that men with young families
dependent upon them should be the last to go. And yet I had rather have
in C. the pat