ike this!"

And then we all laughed exceedingly, as though the most splendid joke
had been made, and before we had done we were out of the village and
in the open country beyond, and could see my house and garden far away
behind, glittering in the sunshine; and in front of us lay the forest,
with its vistas of pines stretching away into infinity, and a drive
through it of fourteen miles before we reached the sea. It was a
hoar-frost day, and the forest was an enchanted forest leading into
fairyland, and though Irais and I have been there often before, and
always thought it beautiful, yet yesterday we stood under the final arch
of frosted trees, struck silent by the sheer loveliness of the place.
For a long way out the sea was frozen, and then there was a deep blue
line, and a cluster of motionless orange sails; at our feet a narrow
strip of pale yellow sand; right and left the line of sparkling forest;
and we ourselves standing in a world of white and diamond traceries. The
stillness of an eternal Sunday lay on the place like a benediction.

Minora broke the silence by remarking that Dresden was pretty, but she
thought this beat it almost.

"I don't quite see," said Irais in a hushed voice, as though she were in
a holy place, "how the two can be compared."

"Yes, Dresden is more convenient, of course," replied Minora; after
which we turned away and thought we would keep her quiet by feeding her,
so we went back to the sleigh and had the horses taken out and their
cloths put on, and they were walked up and down a distant glade while
we sat in the sleigh and picnicked. It is a hard day for the
horses,--nearly thirty miles there and back and no stable in the
middle; but they are so fat and spoiled that it cannot do them much harm
sometimes to taste the bitterness of life. I warmed soup in a little
apparatus I have for such occasions, which helped to take the chilliness
off the sandwiches,--this is the only unpleasant part of a winter
picnic, the clammy quality of the provisions just when you most long
for something very hot. Minora let her nose very carefully out of its
wrappings, took a mouthful, and covered it up quickly again. She was
nervous lest it should be frost-nipped, and truth compels me to add that
her nose is not a bad nose, and might even be pretty on anybody else;
but she does not know how to carry it, and there is an art in the angle
at which one's nose is held just as in everything else, and really noses