necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

WINTER PLEASURES.

E. H. ROLLINS.

["New England Bygones," the work of Ellen H. Rollins, a lady "to the manner born," is so dainty and full in its picturesque descriptions of home life in the country that it is well worthy of the popular favor into which it has risen. From its many interesting chapters we select one descriptive of winter life and scenery in New England, which is partly good for all time, partly has in it the flavor of a past which has been left behind in the rapid course of American progress. Mrs. Rollins was born in Wakefield, New Hampshire, in 1831, and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1881.]

How utterly transforming to the country is the first positive snow-fall of winter! It is a thing of life; it clings and hangs everywhere. Its great, fluffy ridges and folds put out of sight fences and rocks and hillocks and highways, and bleach the gray surface of the landscape into a dazzling whiteness. Under this new veneering the most untidy farm-houses are beautiful, and the worsttilled fields as good as the best. Waking up into such a change some winter morning is like going into a new

world. It is coming out from the gray mourning of the almost dead year into a sublime white silence.

Every country-born person can recall such greeting of an early snow, to meet which he has gone forth with elastic step and heart. Slowly and picturesquely motion is thrust upon the scene. Walkers, scuffling through the light snow, trail slender paths along; smoke coils from chimneys; cattle are let into the sunny barn-yards; life spills out from the farm-houses; troughs are chopped free from ice; men begin to hack at the wood-piles and draw water from the wells; teams are harnessed; children start for school; the new landscape is alive with workers, thrust out with startling distinctness from its snow background.

Directly off from roofs and fences and rocks and higher hillocks, with the sun's march, slips this snow covering, and from the beautiful, evanescent picture arises another, with added warmth and life and color. To one driving through a forest at such a time it is as if fairies had been at work and laden its minutest twigs with a rare white burden. Snow-clad old wood, through which I passed years ago on my way to my grandfather's farm, you are as lovely in memory as you were in reality then. It is early morning. The air seems to crackle with the magic of frost-work. Fleecy fringes are falling from the overburdened branches and fling over me great, foamlike flakes; the horses' hoofs sink deep and noiselessly. Footprints of wild animals are thick in the wood, and all along the wayside are tracks of squirrels, rabbits, and such harmless things. Loaded teams grow frequent, and sleighs fly past. The sound of bells is crisp and loud. Betsy pricks up her ears and flings out a spray-like cloud on either side. The little dog following after shoots over the wall, bounding neck deep into the unbroken snow,

sniffs at the tiny footmarks of game, plunges into the wood, and I hear him barking shortly after far ahead. Twigs begin to snap. There is a crackle through the wood, the sun is climbing up, the snow is melting, and, falling from the trees, sinks with a fluffy sound into the cooler bed below. Sharp and distinct is the voice of this dissolving panorama. As the sun gets power, the snow garment shrinks, and all of a sudden it glides off from the grim old wood.

Often a mist or a rain, coming upon the newly-fallen snow, crystallizes it into solid shapes, and the sun gives to this frost-work a bewildering beauty. Nothing could surpass my old wood thus clad. It was a sublime, manyarched, crystal cathedral, outlined with flashing brightness. What a transient thing it was! As quickly as the sun gilded it, just so quickly did it demolish it. Glittering pillar and frieze and cornice suddenly disintegrated, and under the gray, naked old trees thick-strewn twigs and fast-melting icicles were all that was left of this palace of carved ice.

How short the winter days used to seem! how clear-cut they were by snow and cold and lack of growing life! What winters those were of forty years ago, when snowdrifts blotted out the features of a landscape and levelled the country into a monotonous white plain; when people woke in the morning to find their windows blocked up, and the chief labor of months was to keep their roads open.

Much joy the young people got out of these same snowdrifts. The crusts which hid the fences gave them ample coasting-fields, and they burrowed like rabbits in the drifts. I remember a village, beloved by Boreas, which was beset by mimic Laplanders, who used to call out to surprised travellers from their caves in the piled-up wayside. In this same village the adventurous boy used to

shoot over highway and fence, across fields, past a frozen brook, up to the edge of a forest a mile off. His small craft was liable to strand by the way, and lucky was he if he did not bring up against the jagged bark of some outstanding tree. His sled was home-made, of good wood, mortised and pinned together, and shod with supple withes, which with use took a polish like glass, and had seldom to be renewed.

Boys and girls slid and coasted through their childhood, and this keen challenge of the north winds, this flinging of muscle against the rude forces of winter, shaped and strengthened them for after-labor. They glided along the highway, over the ruts made by iron-shod wood-sleds; they guttered the snow-drifts with tracks; and wherever the rain had settled and frozen in the fields or by the wayside, they cleared and cut up the ponds with their swift-flying feet. Ploughing knee-deep through freshlyfallen snows to the village school, roughly clad, rosycheeked, joyous, they eagerly beset passing sleds and sleighs, hanging to stakes and clinging to runners, from which they tumbled into the school-house entry, stamping it full of snow. The girls were not a whit behind the boys in their clamor and agility. They slid down the steep snow-banks and up and down the ice-paths, swift and fearless, and burst into the school-room almost as riotously as the boys.

Tea-drinkings were the usual social diversions of the farm-house winter life. They were prim occasions, on which the best china, linen, and silver were brought out. Pound-cake and pies and cheese and dough-nuts and cold meats were set forth, and guests partook of them with appetites sharpened by the rarity of the occasion. Neighbors from miles away were liable, on any winter's evening, to drive into my grandfather's yard for a social cup of tea.

The women took off their wraps, smoothed their capborders, and planted themselves, knitting-work in hand, before the hearth in the best room. The men put up their horses, and, coming back, they stamped their feet furiously in the entry, and blustered into the sittingroom, filling it with frosty night-air. They talked of the weather, of the condition of their stock, of how the past year's crops held out, and told their plans for the coming year. The women gossiped of town affairs, the minister, the storekeeper's latest purchase, of their dairies, and webs, and linens, and wools, keeping time with flying fingers to the tales they told. The unconscious old clock in the corner kept ticking away the while, and Hannah, in the next room, set in order the repast, to which they did ample justice, growing more garrulous when inspired by the fine flavor of hospitality. They came and also went away early. When the outer door and big gate had closed after them, there had also gone out with them all extra movement and bustle from the household. Every spoon and fork and plate was already in its place, the remnants of the feast had disappeared, and the family was ready to take up on the morrow the slackened thread of its working ways.

The leave-takings of these ancient hosts and guests were simple and beautiful. They shook hands and passed salutations and good wishes with as much gravity as if they had been going to some far land; and the pleasure which the visitors avowed in the graciousness shown them was heart-felt. Merrily jingled their bells from out the farm-yard into the highway, and, softly dying out with distance, the sound came back from the far-off hills in pleasant echo.

Tender, true hospitality, simple customs, rare entertainments, you left no sting, no weariness, behind you. You