d purposeless. But yester-eve and the mummers were here! They had
come striding into the old kitchen, powdering the red brick floor with
snow from their barbaric bedizenments; and stamping, and crossing, and
declaiming, till all was whirl and riot and shout. Harold was frankly
afraid: unabashed, he buried himself in the cook's ample bosom. Edward
feigned a manly superiority to illusion, and greeted these awful
apparitions familiarly, as Dick and Harry and Joe. As for me, I was too
big to run, too rapt to resist the magic and surprise. Whence came
these outlanders, breaking in on us with song and ordered masque and
a terrible clashing of wooden swords? And after these, what strange
visitants might we not look for any quiet night, when the chestnuts
popped in the ashes, and the old ghost stories drew the awe-stricken
circle close? Old Merlin, perhaps, "all furred in black sheep-skins,
and a russet gown, with a bow and arrows, and bearing wild geese in his
hand!" Or stately Ogier the Dane, recalled from Faery, asking his way
to the land that once had need of him! Or even, on some white night,
the Snow-Queen herself, with a chime of sleigh-bells and the patter of
reindeers' feet, with sudden halt at the door flung wide, while aloft
the Northern Lights went shaking attendant spears among the quiet stars!

This morning, house-bound by the relentless, indefatigable snow, I was
feeling the reaction Edward, on the contrary, being violently stage
struck on this his first introduction to the real Drama, was striding up
and down the floor, proclaiming "Here be I, King Gearge the Third," in a
strong Berkshire accent. Harold, accustomed, as the youngest, to lonely
antics and to sports that asked no sympathy, was absorbed in "clubmen":
a performance consisting in a measured progress round the room
arm-in-arm with an imaginary companion of reverend years, with
occasional halts at imaginary clubs, where--imaginary steps being
leisurely ascended--imaginary papers were glanced at, imaginary scandal
was discussed with elderly shakings of the head, and--regrettable to
say--imaginary glasses were lifted lipwards. Heaven only knows how the
germ of this dreary pastime first found way into his small-boyish
being. It was his own invention, and he was proportionately proud of
it. Meanwhile, Charlotte and I, crouched in the window-seat, watched,
spell-stricken, the whirl and eddy and drive of the innumerable
snow-flakes, wrapping our cheery little