Masculine reader, attend to the moral of this tale:-- Skate well, be a hero, bravely deserve the fair, prove your deserts by your deeds, find your "perfect woman nobly planned to warm, to comfort, and command," catch her when found, and you are Blest. Reader of the gentler sex, likewise attend:-- All the essential blessings of life accompany a true heart and a good complexion. Skate vigorously; then your heart will beat true, your cheeks will bloom, your appointed lover will see your beautiful soul shining through your beautiful face, he will tell you so, and after sufficient circumlocution he will Pop, you will accept, and your lives will glide sweetly as skating on virgin ice to silver music. * * * * * MIDWINTER. The speckled sky is dim with snow, The light flakes falter and fall slow; Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale, Silently drops a silvery veil; The far-off mountain's misty form Is entering now a tent of storm; And all the valley is shut in By flickering curtains gray and thin. But cheerily the chickadee Singeth to me on fence and tree; The snow sails round him, as he sings, White as the down of angels' wings. I watch the slow flakes, as they fall On bank and brier and broken wall; Over the orchard, waste and brown, All noiselessly they settle down, Tipping the apple-boughs, and each Light quivering twig of plum and peach. On turf and curb and bower-roof The snow-storm spreads its ivory woof; It paves with pearl the garden-walk; And lovingly round tattered stalk And shivering stem its magic weaves A mantle fair as lily-leaves. The hooded beehive, small and low, Stands like a maiden in the snow; And the old door-slab is half hid Under an alabaster lid. All day it snows: the sheeted post Gleams in the dimness like a ghost; All day the blasted oak has stood A muffled wizard of the wood; Garland and airy cap adorn The sumach and the way-side thorn, And clustering spangles lodge and shine In the dark tresses of the pine. The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old, Shrinks like a beggar in the cold; In surplice white the cedar stands, And blesses him with priestly hands. Still cheerily the chickadee Singeth to me on fence and tree: But in my inmost ear is heard The music of a holier bird; And heavenly thoughts, as soft and white As snow-flakes, on my soul alight, Clothing with love my lonely heart, Healing with peace each bruisèd part, Till all my being seems to be Transfigured by their purity. * * * * * EASE IN WORK.