f the body that are
most easily frozen are the ears, the chin, the cheek-bones, the nose,
the heels, fingers, and toes. The freezing of any part begins with a
pricking sensation. When this occurs at the point of your nose, it is
time to give earnest attention to that feature, else you run the risk of
having it shortened. The best way to recover it is to rub it well, and
to keep carefully away from the fire.

The likest thing to a frost-bite is a burn. In fact, the two things are
almost the same. In both cases the skin or flesh is destroyed, and
becomes a sore. In the one case it is destroyed by fire, in the other
by frost; but in both it is painful and dangerous, according to the
depth of the frost-bite or the burn. Many a poor fellow loses joints of
his toes and fingers--some have even lost their hands and feet by frost.
Many have lost their lives. But the most common loss is the loss of
the skin of the point of the nose, cheek-bones, and chin--a loss which
is indeed painful, but can be replaced by nature in the course of time.

Of course curious appearances are produced by such intense cold. On
going out into the open air, the breath settles on the breast, whiskers,
and eyebrows in the shape of hoar-frost; and men who go out in the
morning for a ramble with black or brown locks, return at night with
what appears to be grey hair--sometimes with icicles hanging about their
faces. Horses and cattle there are seldom without icicles hanging from
their lips and noses in winter.

Poor Mr Pemberton was much troubled in this way. He was a fat and
heavy man, and apt to perspire freely. When he went out to shoot in
winter, the moisture trickled down his face and turned his whiskers into
two little blocks of ice; and he used to be often seen, after a hard
day's walk, sitting for a long time beside the stove, holding his cheeks
to the fire, and gently coaxing the icy blocks to let go their hold!

But for all this, the long winter of those regions is a bright enjoyable
season. The cold is not felt so much as one would expect, because it is
not _damp_, and the weather is usually bright and sunny.

From what I have said, the reader will understand that summer in those
regions is short and very hot; the winter long and very cold. Both
seasons have their own peculiar enjoyments, and, to healthy men, both
are extremely agreeable.

I have said that Jasper's marriage-day had arrived. New Year's Day was
fixed for his u