Welcome his rough grip! welcome, the fleet horse with flying feet, and arching throat, neck-laced with merry bells; welcome, bright eyes, and rosy cheeks, and furred robes, and the fun-provoking sleigh-ride; welcome, the swift skater who skims, bird-like, the silvery pond; welcome, Old Santa Claus with his horn of plenty; welcome, the “Happy New-Year,” with her many-voiced echoes, and gay old Thanksgiving, with his groaning table, old friends and new babies; welcome, for the bright fireside, the closed curtains, the dear, unbroken home-circle, the light heart, the merry jest, the beaming smile, the soft “good-night,” the downy bed, and rosy slumbers. * * * * * WINTER IS COMING. Alas for his rough grip! the barrel of meal is empty, and the cruse of oil fails. Sharp winds flutter thin rags ’round shivering limbs. There are pinched features, and benumbed feet, and streaming eyes, and repulsed hands, and despairing hearts; there are damp corners, and straw pallets, and hollow coughs, and hectic cheeks; there are dismantled roofs, through which the snow gently drops its white, icy pall over the wasted limbs of the dying; there are babes whose birthright is poverty, whose legacy is shame, whose baptism is tears, _whose little life is all winter_. “THE OTHER SEX.” “Let cynics prattle as they may, our existence here, without the presence of the other sex, would be only a dark and cheerless void.” _Which_ “other sex?” Don’t be so obscure. Dr. Beecher says, “that a writer’s ideas should stand out like rabbits’ ears, so that the reader can get hold of them.” If you allude to the female sex, I don’t subscribe to it. I wish they were all “translated.” If there is anything that gives me the sensations of a landsman on his first sea voyage, it is the sight of a bonnet. Think of female friendship! Two women joining the Mutual Admiration Society; emptying their budget of love affairs; comparing bait to entrap victims; sighing over the same rose leaf; sonnetizing the same moonbeam; patronizing the same milliner, and _exchanging female kisses_! (Betty, hand me my fan!)