fuls of snow at one another, in their enormous sport. So
thick were the fluttering snow-flakes, that even the trees, midway
down the valley, were hidden by them the greater part of the time.
Sometimes, it is true, the little prisoners of Tanglewood could
discern a dim outline of Monument Mountain, and the smooth whiteness
of the frozen lake at its base, and the black or gray tracts of
woodland in the nearer landscape. But these were merely peeps through
the tempest.

Nevertheless, the children rejoiced greatly in the snow-storm. They
had already made acquaintance with it, by tumbling heels over head
into its highest drifts, and flinging snow at one another, as we have
just fancied the Berkshire mountains to be doing. And now they had
come back to their spacious play-room, which was as big as the great
drawing-room, and was lumbered with all sorts of playthings, large and
small. The biggest was a rocking-horse, that looked like a real pony;
and there was a whole family of wooden, waxen, plaster, and china
dolls, besides rag-babies; and blocks enough to build Bunker Hill
Monument, and nine-pins, and balls, and humming-tops, and battledores,
and grace-sticks, and skipping-ropes, and more of such valuable
property than I could tell of in a printed page. But the children
liked the snow-storm better than them all. It suggested so many brisk
enjoyments for to-morrow, and all the remainder of the winter. The
sleigh-ride; the slides down hill into the valley; the snow-images
that were to be shaped out; the snow-fortresses that were to be built;
and the snowballing to be carried on!

So the little folks blessed the snow-storm, and were glad to see it
come thicker and thicker, and watched hopefully the long drift that
was piling itself up in the avenue, and was already higher than any of
their heads.

"Why, we shall be blocked up till spring!" cried they, with the hugest
delight. "What a pity that the house is too high to be quite covered
up! The little red house, down yonder, will be buried up to its
eaves."

"You silly children, what do you want of more snow?" asked Eustace,
who, tired of some novel that he was skimming through, had strolled
into the play-room. "It has done mischief enough already, by spoiling
the only skating that I could hope for through the winter. We shall
see nothing more of the lake till April; and this was to have been my
first day upon it! Don't you pity me, Primrose?"

"Oh, to be sure!" answered