e sledge with
him, by way of insuring a safe passage; and down they went, full
speed. But, behold, halfway down, the sledge hit against a hidden
stump, and flung all four of its passengers into a heap; and, on
gathering themselves up, there was no little Squash-Blossom to be
found! Why, what could have become of the child? And while they were
wondering and staring about, up started Squash-Blossom out of a
snow-bank, with the reddest face you ever saw, and looking as if a
large scarlet flower had suddenly sprouted up in midwinter. Then there
was a great laugh.

When they had grown tired of sliding down hill, Eustace set the
children to digging a cave in the biggest snow-drift that they could
find. Unluckily, just as it was completed, and the party had squeezed
themselves into the hollow, down came the roof upon their heads, and
buried every soul of them alive! The next moment, up popped all their
little heads out of the ruins, and the tall student's head in the
midst of them, looking hoary and venerable with the snow-dust that had
got amongst his brown curls. And then, to punish Cousin Eustace for
advising them to dig such a tumble-down cavern, the children attacked
him in a body, and so bepelted him with snowballs that he was fain to
take to his heels.

So he ran away, and went into the woods, and thence to the margin of
Shadow Brook, where he could hear the streamlet grumbling along, under
great overhanging banks of snow and ice, which would scarcely let it
see the light of day. There were adamantine icicles glittering around
all its little cascades. Thence he strolled to the shore of the lake,
and beheld a white, untrodden plain before him, stretching from his
own feet to the foot of Monument Mountain. And, it being now almost
sunset, Eustace thought that he had never beheld anything so fresh and
beautiful as the scene. He was glad that the children were not with
him; for their lively spirits and tumble-about activity would quite
have chased away his higher and graver mood, so that he would merely
have been merry (as he had already been, the whole day long), and
would not have known the loveliness of the winter sunset among the
hills.

When the sun was fairly down, our friend Eustace went home to eat his
supper. After the meal was over, he betook himself to the study with a
purpose, I rather imagine, to write an ode, or two or three sonnets,
or verses of some kind or other, in praise of the purple and golden
clou