The first snow-storm of the season never becomes an old story. It retains its charm indefinitely, to all original minds at least, and to such as have cherished any degree of simplicity. Here is a mimic invasion of an elemental beauty which conquers us by reason of its very gentleness. We are soothed and beguiled into submission. Tempestuous winds call forth our resistance; we front them with set teeth. But who can resist the silent snow descending as if to lay the world under a soft enchantment? The woods are renewed and reclothed in virgin purity. It is as if old scores were wiped out and the world were again a spotless thing. What can be more companionable than the falling snow? Its touch is so caressing, its advent so silent in the open, its voice so pleasing as it sifts through the pine-needles. The first solitary flakes approach with the gentle effect of preparing one for the miracle to ensue. A calm settles over all, as though these were indeed the messengers of peace. Recently there fell such a clinging and abundant snow as comes perhaps only once in a season, and some years not at all. The woods were literally buried and saplings everywhere bent to the ground beneath its weight. It enveloped the pines until they became miniature Alps in the landscape, while among the oaks were gleaming corridors and marble halls. The open, barren aspect common to winter was gone, and the dense walls had shut in again as in summer, but now crystalline and dazzling. This is perhaps Nature's greatest transformation. In a single night have been erected such palaces as were never seen in Persia. What a bold, free hand wrought here! In the thousand domes and arches is a massive architecture, relieved by the utmost delicacy, as though Nature said, "Behold, I show you a miracle." A miracle indeed! Here have wrought the genii of the air while mortals slept, and all that was to be heard was the rustling of their wings. At such times the woods grow suddenly strange and unfamiliar. They so lend themselves to the enchantment we are lost in our own wood-lot. Familiar paths are obliterated by pendulous boughs drooping to the earth, while in the pasture tree-sparrows hop upon the snow among the protruding tops of the tallest ragweeds. Realize if you can in your walk, over how many sleepers you step all unknown; how many woodchucks in their burrows, and frogs in the mud under the ice; how many torpid snakes and dozing chipmunks. Here is an enchanted household--underground. They are at peace and their timid hearts know no fear. The dreaming toad has no terror of writhing blacksnakes, and the snoozing woodchuck has forgotten the dog. Presently they will awake to hunger and fear again. Woodchucks will be up long before breakfast, to go shivering in the cold dawn of the year waiting for the table to be spread. Snakes do not come out till the sun is well up, to lie basking in the noonday heat, catching the first unwary grasshoppers.