Dearly do schoolboys love a hard winter, because it brings sliding, and skating, and snowballing in its train. Is not December, then, a merry month? Well, there is a reverse to the picture. In the first place, we poor, creaky invalids feel his cold touch in every joint, and at every shortening breath drawn from our wheezing chests, and very early in the month get shut up by the peremptory doctor; unless, indeed, we are too poor to be laid aside from the active toil that wins daily bread. Let the invalid with every comfort around her, think of those who have neither warm fires, nor warm clothing, nor warm bedding, nor warm food. See their sad, pinched faces, shrinking forms, chilblained hands, and ill-protected feet; think of their desolate dwellings, where the rain drips through the roof, where the broken pane is stuffed with rags, and where, for many hours daily, no fire burns on the hearth; and then refuse them sympathy and aid if you are not of the same flesh and blood, children of the same Creator! Oh, the time is drawing near when we may indeed warm our own hearts by warming the bodies of others! by putting shoes with warm stockings on bare feet, thick tweed on shoulders, and flannel on chests, coals in the grate, and wholesome, nourishing food on the table! Here is our encouragement—“And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee, but thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.” As I look up from my writing on this 4th of December, I see a blue, cloudless sky shining above steep, chalky hills that are clothed with the short, sweet turf loved by sheep, below which are green meadows, cut with dykes, to drain them during the winter; leafless hedges and scattered clumps of trees, principally oaks, still clad in a good many yellow leaves. The tiled roofs of many scattered cottages in the lanes are now visible, that cannot be seen in the summer: all looks bright and cheerful. Such is hardly a scene to remind one of the real severity of winter:— “When all abroad the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson’s saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian’s nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, When nightly sings the staring owl, ‘Tu-whit! tu-whoo!’ a dismal note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.” For my part, I like hearing the owl; perhaps because Shakspere has linked it with immortal verse. Dismal it is, I suppose—something like the forlorn cry of a belated traveller for assistance: its association with darkness and horror makes more vivid the contrast of the light twinkling through the casement, the crab-apples roasting and sputtering as they are popped, scalding hot, into the wassail-bowl, and Mrs. Joan’s assurance to the hospitable host that she has had “quite enough,” and has quite emptied her mug, to verity which, she turns it topsy-turvy—top-side t’other way. * * * * *