One incident of this eventful period must not be passed over in silence. The reader himself will judge of its importance. It was the 25th November, St. Catherine's Day. In Italy and the South of Europe, the Virgin-Martyr is venerated as the patron of philosophical students, and the collegiate bodies celebrate her festival with public disputations on logical and metaphysical subjects. But in Belgium and France, the day is kept as one of social rejoicing by the young, and in Canada, from the earliest times, probably because it marks the closing day of the navigation of the St. Lawrence and the beginning of the long dreary winter, it is observed with song, dance, games, and other tokens of revelry. One special feature is the making of taffy which the young girls engage in during the evening, and with which they regale their friends and lovers. The day itself had been melancholy enough. Snow had fallen continually until it had piled a foot high on the level roads. The wind howled dismally around the gables, and the branches of a maple beat doleful music against the window of Zulma's room. She felt the influence of the inhospitable weather. A feeling of weariness weighed upon her from the early hours of the morning. Nothing that she attempted to do could distract her mind or dispel her loneliness. The book which she had taken up over and over again lay with its face down upon the table. The harpsichord was open, but the music on its rack was tossed and tumbled. Zulma was a good musician and passionately fond of her instrument, but could not abide it when her spirits were depressed. She used to declare that, even in her best moods, the simplest melody had for her a tinge of sadness, which, when she herself was sorrowful, became a positive pain. She scarcely left her room during the whole day. The house was silent and could afford her no relief. There was nobody stirring in the courtyard or around the kitchen. Even the great watch dog had retired to sleep in his kennel. The snow fell noiselessly, curtaining out all the world; the line of the sky was low and leaden, and nothing was heard to break the death-like stillness of the air, save occasional gusts of wind sullenly booming in the hollows. If Zulma could have slept! More than once she threw herself wearily upon her couch, but the eyelids which she would have closed remained rigidly open, and she surprised herself gazing with intense stare upon the arabesques of the window shades or the flowered patterns of her bed curtains, while all sorts of wild, incongruous fancies trooped through her brain, causing her brow to ache. She would then spring with impatience to her feet, stretch out her white arms, clasp her hands behind her neck, roll up the coils of golden hair that had fallen on her shoulders, and then walk up to the window, where she gazed vacantly out upon the bleak prospect.