were as cheerful as if they had just come into fortunes. They recognised the snow as an old and welcome friend returned to them. There was a hunting out of “rubbers,” goloshes in which to envelop the boots. There was a tinkling of bells in the streets, reminding one of the “Alpine chimes” heard on the pastures of Switzerland when the cattle are let loose to browse as and where they will. All wheels had been taken off vehicles, and sledge methods of conveyance adopted in their place. Wheels would not appear again until the end of March. My Montreal host regretted that I could not remain in the city, for he was promising his family the most delightful sledge outing over the new fallen snow. Drays, tradesmen’s traps, automobiles, taxis, handcarts, every kind of vehicle was running on sleighs, and bells were jingling from the neck of every horse and from every vehicle. Sleighing is an ever-exhilarating pastime during the Canadian winter. Then, again, there are toboganning and all sorts of winter sports to be enjoyed at home, and not as the rare luxury of the rich, who can afford to break away from business and put up at expensive Swiss hotels. Skating, of course, is an enjoyment within the reach of the poorest, and it is an enjoyment available at least four months of the year, and not, as in England, the rarest of accidents following on a four days’ frost and put an end to by the thaw that inevitably comes when the skates are being looked out from the place they were put three years ago and polished of the gathered rust.