Imagine then, a small, New England, country village; one of those that are formed by a cluster of white houses about a shaded square, and rows of similar dwellings on each side of a long, wide street, lined with elms and buttonwoods. The time is seven o’clock; the round full moon has risen above the distant eastern hills—all over the square, and adown the broad street stretches an expanse of dazzling snow. The sleigh paths are yet almost as purely white as the untrodden snow on either side. Save where the steel-shod runners have left gleaming stripes, and the shadows of the snow banks fall, these tracks are hardly distinguishable. The deep snow fell only last night, and the roofs of the houses, the fences, and the dark fir trees in the front-door yards are yet covered with heavy, glittering, sparkling burdens. The houses on the east side cast long shadows across the street. Those on the other side glow in the moonbeams only less white than the snow itself. Columns of pale, gray smoke ascend from every chimney, straight and steadily, until they mingle with the dark blue sky. One chimney alone emits a rushing crowd of fiery sparks; and all around the low, wide portal of the rude shed it overtops, a ruddy gleam shines out upon troops of men and startled horses, and casts a fierce glare upon the trampled snow around. Then the cheerful ring of hammer and anvil is heard. The sturdy smiths work half the night at such a time, for smooth-shod horses are not the nags for a sleigh ride.