No one ever sees the full charm of the forest who turns his back upon it in the winter, for its clear-cut tree-forms are an unceasing delight and wonder. Look at the exquisite lines of that drooping birch, the intricate interlacing tracery of the minute branching twigs! Could anything be more graceful or more chaste? could any covering of leaves enhance its beauty? And so the apple-tree by the old stone wall--how different its various angles! how individual in its character! how beautiful its silhouette against the sky! Thus every separate tree affords a perfect study, of infinite design. See that mottled beech trunk yonder. What! never noticed it before? That was because its drooping leaf-clad branches concealed its beauty; but now not only does it emerge from its wonted obscurity, but the whiteness of the snowy ground beyond gives added value to every subtle tint upon its dappled surface. Step nearer. With what variety of exquisite tender grays has nature painted the clean smooth bark! See those marbled variegations, each spot with a distinct tint of its own, and each tint composed of a multitude of microscopic points of color. Here we see a fimbriated blotch of dark olive moss, spreading its intertwining rootlets in all directions, and further up a spongy tuft of rich brown lichen tipped with snow. Who could pass by unnoticed such a refined and exquisite bit of painting as this? And yet they abound on every side. See the shingly shagbark, with its mottlings of pale green lichen and orange spots, its jagged outline so perfectly relieved against the snow, and, beyond, that group of rock-maples, with its bold contrasts of deep green moss, and striped tints of most varied shades, from lightest drab to deepest brown. And there is the yellow birch with its tight-wound bark, fringed with ravellings of buff-colored satin. Here we come upon a clump of chestnuts, their cool trunks set off in bold relief against a background of dark hemlocks, whose outer branches, clothed in snow, like tufted mittens, hang low upon the ground. [Illustration: THE WINTER’S DARLING.]