The woman who cannot dispense with female servants, must not travel. I had none for six months, keen winter months, in Annapolis; the only persons who could be found disengaged being of characters wholly inadmissible. The straits to which I was put were any thing but laughable at the time, though the recollection now often excites a smile. Indeed no perfection in European housekeeping would avail to guard against the devastations that a Nova Scotian frost will make, if not met by tactics peculiar to that climate. How could I anticipate that a fine piece of beef, fresh-killed, brought in at noon still warm, would by two o'clock require smart blows with a hatchet to slice off a steak; or that half-a-dozen plates, perfectly dry, placed at a moderate distance from the fire preparatory to dinner, would presently separate into half a hundred fragments, through the action of heat on their frosted pores; or that milk drawn from a cow within sight of my breakfast-table would be sheeted with ice on its passage thither; or that a momentary pause, for the choice of a fitting phrase in writing a letter, would load the nib of my pen with a black icicle? If I did not cry over my numerous breakages and other disasters, it was under the apprehension of tears freezing on my eyelids; and truly they might have done so, for my fingers were once in that awful condition that must have ended in mortification, but for the presence of mind of a poor soldier, who, seeing me running to the fire in that state, drew his bayonet to bar my approach, and wrapping a coarse cloth round my lifeless hands, muff-fashion, compelled me to walk up and down the spacious hall until the circulation returned, which it did with a sensation of agony that well-nigh took away my senses. This was a most signal escape, for I was wholly ignorant of my danger, and not a little perplexed and annoyed at the insubordinate conduct of the veteran, who was a model of respectful humility. Had he, poor fellow, known how busy those fingers would one day be against his religion--for he was a French Romanist--he might have been tempted to sheath his bayonet and give me free access to the tempting fire, the immense faggots of which would have sufficed to roast a heretic.