We are half inclined to lament that the incidents of our story confine us to one short month, nay, oftener to one little day of every passing year, but nevertheless so it is, and we may not murmur. Doubtless could we have sketched the glories of some midsummer morning or autumnal night, or wandered by our heroine’s side through the gowan-spotted braes in the verdant springtime, we should have had pleasanter objects to describe, and a pleasanter task in describing them, and our readers a less wearisome one in following us; but seeing that we must, perforce, abide by “the chamber and the dusky hearth,” even so, let it be. The hearth of our present sketch is in nowise dusky, however; there is nothing about it that is not bright as the blazing fire itself. If you look from the window you may see that everything without is chained down hard and fast in the iron fetters of the frost, and covered with a mantle of dazzling whiteness. With tenacious grasp the wintry king fixes the less obdurate snow to the heavy housetops, decking them as with hood and mantle; with malicious glee it rivets each drop of spilt water on the slippery pavement, bringing sudden humiliation, downfall and woe, to the heedless passengers; and from the southern eaves where the sun has for some short time exerted a feeble power, hang long icicles in curious spirals, like the curls of youthful beauty. Keen and cold, it revels in the piercing wind, which coming from the bleak north in full gush round the chill street corner, aggravates the wintry red and blue which battle for the mastery in the faces of the shivering passengers, and screams out its chill laughter in the gale, when some sturdy man who has but now chased its little glowing votaries from their icy play is suddenly overthrown himself by one incautious step, and with prostration lower than Eastern does homage to its power, to the great and loudly expressed satisfaction of the urchins aforesaid, who have resumed again their merry game with renewed zeal and vigour.