me thundering down the
roof one evening, about ten o'clock, but all the world understood its
cry of 'Stand from under,' and no one was hurt. Several windows were
blown in at midnight, and houses shook so that vases fell from the
mantelpieces.

"The last snow drifted so that the sleighing was difficult, and at
present the storm is so smothering that few are out. A. has been out to
school every day, and I have not failed to go out into the air once a
day to take a short walk.

"January 24. We left the mercury one below zero when we went to bed last
night, and it was at zero when we rose this morning. But it rises
rapidly, and now, at eleven A.M., it is as high as fifteen. The weather
is still and beautiful; the English steamer is still safe at her
moorings.

"Our little club met last night, each with a sonnet. I did the best I
could with a very bad subject. K. and E. rather carried the honors away,
but Mr. J. M.'s was very taking. Our 'crambo' playing was rather dull,
all of us having exhausted ourselves on the sonnets. We seem to have
settled ourselves quietly into a tone of resignation in regard to the
weather; we know that we cannot 'get out,' any more than Sterne's
Starling, and we know that it is best not to fret.

"The subject which I have drawn for the next poem is 'Sunrise,' about
which I know very little. K. and I continue to learn twenty lines of
poetry a day, and I do not find it unpleasant, though the 'Deserted
Village' is rather monotonous.

"We hear of no suffering in town for fuel or provisions, and I think we
could stand a three months' siege without much inconvenience as far as
the physicals are concerned.

"January 26. The ice continues, and the cold. The weather is beautiful,
and with the thermometer at fourteen I swept with the telescope an hour
and a half last night, comfortably. The English steamer will get off
to-morrow. It is said that they burned their cabin doors last night to
keep their water hot. Many people go out to see her; she lies off
'Sconset, about half a mile from shore. We have sent letters by her
which, I hope, may relieve anxiety.

"K. bought a backgammon board to-day. Clifford [the little nephew] came
in and spent the morning.

"January 29. We have had now two days of warm weather, but there is yet
no hope of getting our steamboat off. Day before yesterday we went to
'Sconset to see the English steamer. She lay so near the shore that we
could hear the orders given, and se