ping
willow, and the elegant silver birch. You should see them after a fall
of snow. Each tree bears the weight of snow after a different
fashion--like itself.

"In fact the woods during a bright hard frost are as good as Fairyland.
The brown dead oak leaves lying on the ground are fringed all round the
edges with what looks like small diamonds sparkling in the sun. The
frost takes every blade of grass, every twig and straw, and covers them
with glittering crystal, and the whole air is clear and bright."

"We have some very beautiful days in winter," said Katey.

"Yes," said her mother; "calm, still, cloudless days--like midsummer,
only of course colder. Not very often, it is true, but occasionally.

"I was walking on one such day till I came to what had been the private
road leading to a gentleman's house. The house itself was old and
uninhabited, and the way to it was open. I walked along, and the trees
on either side of it were bare, sparkling with frost and looking like
other trees outside. Presently I came to a bend in the road, and saw
that on both sides the space was planted with evergreen shrubs and
trees, and some of the trees were very tall. There were evergreen oaks,
and pines, and firs, and plenty of the large-leaved ivy. It seemed as if
I had walked from midwinter into midsummer. The bright sun was shining,
the air was still, the sky a cloudless blue, and all the trees were
green! I stood still to enjoy the sight, then I walked on for a very
short way, when another sharp turn of the road brought me back to the
wintry landscape of bare trees and more open country. That sight can be
seen any winter now."

"I thought the country was dull in winter," said Mary.

"We have dull days, rainy days, and dark days; but then, although Nature
is so quiet, she is still alive, and there are always changes going on.

"I knew a gentleman, who is dead now, but he lived to be very old. For a
very great many years he always took one walk, at a certain hour every
Sunday morning, all the year through. It was a very ordinary country
walk--through the little town, up by the side of a fir plantation, along
hedge-rows and scattered houses, over a stile into a long ploughed field
generally planted with turnips for cattle, then over another stile,
through winding lanes that led to farm-houses and at last came out into
the public road.

"It interested him to watch the changes week after week--the first
appearing of buds in the