ial gatherings, I met with some one, generally a
lady, who did take an interest in hearing that I had been in such or
such a place; but this was always some place in which she had been, and,
after comparing experiences, she would go on to tell of things which she
had seen and done, and often ended by making me feel very sorry for
having neglected my opportunities.

"Yes," said one, "it must have been cold on the top of that lonely
mountain, with nothing to warm you but those plump little wolves, and
the constant fear that their mother might come back; but you ought to
have been here during the blizzard." And then she went on with a full
history of the great blizzard.

Everywhere I was met by that blizzard. Those people who had not moved,
or who had not had a puzzling disease in the family, or who had not been
instrumental in founding a free kindergarten, could always fall back on
the blizzard. I heard how their fathers could not get home on the train,
of the awful prices the people charged for clearing away the snow, of
the way in which Jane and Adelaide had to get on without music lessons
for nearly ten days, and of the scarcity of milk. No one who had seen
and felt that irrepressible storm suffered from it as I did. It chilled
the aspirations of my soul, it froze the unspoken words of my mouth, it
overwhelmed and buried every rising hope of speech, and smothered and
sometimes nearly obliterated my most interesting recollection. Many a
time I have mentally sent that blizzard to regions where its icy blasts
would have melted as in a hot simoom.

I truly believed that in our village I should find sensible people who
would be glad to hear about interesting things which they never had
seen. Many of them had not traveled, and a returned tourist was a
comparative rarity in the place. I went down there on purpose to talk
about Europe. It was too early for my grandmother's return to the
country. I proposed to spend a week with my village friends, and, before
their bright firesides, charm and delight them with accounts of those
things which had so charmed and delighted me. The lives of city people
are so filled with every sort of material that it is useless to try to
crowd anything more into them. Here, however, were people with excellent
intellects, whose craving for mental pabulum, especially in the winter,
could be but partially satisfied.

But bless me! I never heard of such an over-stock of mental pabulum as I
found th