It was a clear, cold, brilliant morning in March. The whole broad
country was covered with a thick crust of hard, glittering snow, and
every tree was encased in ice. The oaks and elms and chestnuts and
beeches from their trunks upward and outward to their minutest
twigs, and the pines and firs with their greenness shining through,
sparkled like diamonds and. emeralds in the brightness of the sun.
O, it was a glorious morning, and we have seldom since been so young
in feeling as never we are sure in years, as when we walked forth
into its bracing air. And Aunt Rachel--she enjoyed it; the broad icy
fields, the difficult ascent of the steep slippery hills and the
"duckies" down them, and the crackling of the icicles as we thrust
our way through the bristling under-brush of those diamond-cressed
woods. We loved even to eat the icicles that hung from the pines
with their pungent flavour, strong as though their pointed leaves
had been steeped in boiling water. It was a pleasure to taste as
well as see the trees.
As we entered the "Main Road" and were passing along by the "Asylum
for the Insane," a clear, pleasant voice from one of the cells in
the upper story, accosted us: "Good morning, ladies.
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