front, and its huge buttresses projecting on to the pavement. In the Old Boar's Head there was a large consumption of roast-beef and mince-pie by old and young alike; and in the evening a sharp walk home, taking the Clough in our way.

The next day the frost became severe again; and on the morning of the third we found that there had been a fresh fall of snow, When I went to feed the birds I saw by their foot-marks that, impatient for my coming, they had already been to the crumb-pot looking for breakfast. As the snow was quite new I could make out the different kinds of birds by the size and the depth of the imprint. The robin's foot seems the lightest of all. The trees were once more arrayed in their white dress-the hollies covered on the top, but black underneath; the rhododendrons bent down with a shapeless load the deciduous trees powdered all over, and the firs most beautiful of all. On the fourth, we had the finest sunset of all the winter. At four o'clock the frozen trees were transformed to a brilliant pink, and rose-coloured clouds were drifting across the sky.

Yesterday the wind changed to the east; but the frost continues. To-night the moon is at full, the sky clear, the cold intense, the shadows black and sharp in the snow, and the wind so violent that it

makes a great roaring in the trees. The skating is at its best again, for the wind keeps the ice smooth and bright. One of my boys has just been in to say that he has skated three miles without stopping by making the circuit of the pond some fifty times; and another tells me that by holding a kind of sail in his hands he has been driven along the ice as a boat would be on the water. Earlier in the evening I had myself a splendid run in the sledge, two good skaters pulling in front and another pushing behind. Nothing more exhilarating can be conceived than this sledge-riding. To paraphrase Wordsworth-we give our bodies to the wind; the shadowy banks on either side spin round and sweep past us; and even when we have stopped, they still wheel on as if

The earth had rolled

With visible motion her diurnal round!

All this, however, is the bright side of winter. It is too good to last, and we must not expect to escape the dreary and dolorous days which have surely yet to come. But, when these are over, we know what awaits us. In my first Notes, which were written on the seventeenth of January in last year, I drew attention to the bright colour of the new leaves on the young foxglove plants. This year, on the sloping bed

beneath the leafless thorns, I have already seen the same thing; and so the round of the changeful seasons and my simple record of them are both completed together; and I bid the patient reader farewell with my best New Year's greeting and this last word for his comfort:

If Winter comes can Spring be far behind?

AN INDEX OF QUOTATIONS.

PAGE

2. William Wordsworth, 'To my Sister,' Works, vol. v. p. 17.

5. Lord Bacon, Essay, 'Of Gardens.'

6. John Ruskin, Oxford Lectures.

7. Percy Bysshe Shelley, 'Summer and Winter.'

12. Dante, The Inferno, Canto ix. Trans. J. W. Thomas.

12. S. T. Coleridge, 'The Ancient Mariner,' Part i.

12. Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King, 'Guinevere.'

14. William Cowper, The Task. Book v. L. 11.

17. Alfred Tennyson, Foems, 'St. Agnes.'

6

18. Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella,' xxxi.

18. William Wordsworth, 'Intimations of Immortality,' Works, vol. v.

P. 337.

18. Percy Bysshe Shelley, 'To a Skylark.'

20. Alfred Tennyson, Poems, 'Enone.'

21. Sebastian Evans, Poems, 1865, 'Crocus-Gathering,' p. 196.

21. John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book iv. L. 700.

30. Sir Walter Scott, 'The Bridal of Triermain,' Canto i. Sts. xii.

and xiii.

31. Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King, 'Vivien.'

34. Robert Herrick, Ceremony upon Candlemas Eve.'

35. Old Ballad: Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Sir Patrick

Spence.'

35. S. T. Coleridge, 'Dejection: An Ode.'

38. William Wordsworth, I wandered lonely,' Works, vol. ii. p. 93.
39. Dorothy Wordsworth, Memoirs of Wordsworth, vol. i. p. 182.

PAGE

39. William Wordsworth, Memoirs, vol. 1. p. 188.

40. Michael Drayton, The Ninth Eclogue.'

41. Robert Herrick, To Daffadils.'

41. William Shakspere, The Winter's Tale, Act iv. Sc. iii.

49. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Milleres Tale.'
50. Charles Lamb, Correspondence, p. 30.

51. Robert Herrick, 'To Dianeme: A Ceremonie in Glocester.
53. Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia, All Fools' Day.'

54. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. ii. To the Small Celandine.'
54.
Memoirs, vol. i. p. 189.

56. Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Pointes, A Description of the Pro-

perties of Windes.'

61. Geoffrey Chaucer, 'The Prologe of Nine Goode Wymmen.'

62. William Shakspere, Lucrece, L. 393.

63. Robert Herrick, "To Daisies, not to shut so soone.'

64. Robert Burns, 'To a Mountain Daisy.'

64. P. B. Shelley, 'The Question.'

64. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. ii. 'To the Daisy, 1805.'

68. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chap. xxx.

69. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. i. 'Foresight.'

70. Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, lxxxii.

75. William Shakspere, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act i. Sc. i.

6

75. Robert Herrick, Corinna's going a Maying.'

76. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. v. Intimations of Immor-

tality.'

80. William Wordsworth, Works, vol i. 'The Sparrow's Nest.'

81. J. R. Lowell, To the Dandelion.'

84. John Milton, 'Song on May Morning.'

84. William Morris, The Earthly Paradise, May.'