to his throne. But shade yet lingers undisturbed in
the valleys, mingled with timid smoke from household chimneys; blue as
the smoke, a gauzy haze is twined around the brow of every distant hill;
and the same soft azure confuses the outlines of the nearer trees, to
whose branches snowy wreaths are clinging, far up among the boughs, like
strange new flowers. Everywhere the unstained surface glistens in the
sunbeams. In the curves and wreaths and turrets of the drifts a blue
tinge nestles. The fresh pure sky answers to it; every cloud has
vanished, save one or two which linger near the horizon, pardoned
offenders, seeming far too innocent for mischief, although their dark
and sullen brothers, banished ignominiously below the horizon's verge,
may be plotting nameless treachery there. The brook still flows visibly
through the valley, and the myriad rocks that check its course are all
rounded with fleecy surfaces, till they seem like flocks of tranquil
sheep that drink the shallow flood.

The day is one of moderate cold, but clear and bracing; the air sparkles
like the snow; everything seems dry and resonant, like the wood of a
violin. All sounds are musical,--the voices of children, the cooing
of doves, the crowing of cocks, the chopping of wood, the creaking of
country sleds, the sweet jangle of sleighbells. The snow has fallen
under a cold temperature, and the flakes are perfectly crystallized;
every shrub we pass bears wreaths which glitter as gorgeously as the
nebula in the constellation Perseus; but in another hour of sunshine
every one of those fragile outlines will disappear, and the white
surface glitter no longer with stars, but with star-dust. On such a
day, the universe seems to held but three pure tints,--blue, white,
and green. The loveliness of the universe seems simplified to its last
extreme of refined delicacy. That sensation we poor mortals often
have, of being just on the edge of infinite beauty, yet with always a
lingering film between, never presses down more closely than on days
like this. Everything seems perfectly prepared to satiate the soul with
inexpressible felicity if we could only, by one infinitesimal step
farther, reach the mood to dwell in it.

Leaving behind us the sleighs and snow-shovels of the street, we turn
noiselessly toward the radiant margin of the sunlit woods. The yellow
willows on the causeway burn like flame against the darker background,
and will burn on until they burst into