-and people in town unhappy
till they rush away into the country--thus cheating their entire
existence out of its natural calm and satisfaction. Not so we. We give
both their due--and that due is an almost undivided delight in each
while we live under its reign. For Nature, believe us, is no jealous
mistress. She is an affectionate wife, who, being assured of his
fidelity, is not afraid to trust her husband out of her sight,

"When still the town affairs do call him thence,"

and who waits with cheerful patience for his return, duly welcomed with
a conjugal shower of smiles and kisses.

But what is this we see before us? Winter--we declare--and in full fig
with his powdered wig! On the mid-day of November, absolutely snow! a
full, fair, and free fall of indisputable snow.

Not the slightest idea had we, the day before, that a single flake had
yet been formed in the atmosphere, which, on closing of our shutters,
looked through the clear-obscure, indicative of a still night and a
bright morning. But we had not seen the moon. She, we are told by an
eyewitness, early in the evening, _stared_ from the south-east, "through
the misty horizontal air," with a face of portentous magnitude and
brazen hue, symptomatic, so weatherwise seers do say, of the approach of
the Snow-king. On such occasions it requires all one's astronomical
science to distinguish between sun and moon; for then sister resembles
brother in that wan splendour, and you wonder for a moment, as the large
beamless orb (how unlike Dian's silver bow!) is in ascension, what can
have brought the lord of day, at this untimeous hour, from his sea-couch
behind the mountains of the west. Yet during the night-calm we suspected
snow--for the hush of the heavens had that downy feel, to our
half-sleeping fancy, that belongs to the eider-pillow in which
disappears our aged, honoured, and un-nightcap'd head. Looking out by
peep of day--rather a ghostlike appearance in our long night-shirt,
which trails a regal train--we beheld the fair feathers dimly descending
through the glimmer, while momently the world kept whitening and
whitening, till we knew not our home-returning white cat on what was
yesterday the back-_green_, but by the sable tail that singularly shoots
from the rump of that phenomenon. We were delighted. Into the cold
plunge-bath we played plop like a salmon--and came out as red as a cut
of that incomparable fish. One ply of leather--one of flannel--and one