ing a tempest seems to be impossible; the animals one is driving face about in harness, and refuse to proceed; and so, beset on every hand, with an intellect benumbed and paralyzed by the intense cold, and a body overcome by physical inertia, one gives up all effort as only adding unnecessary pain, and sits down to be bound hand and foot by the final stupor. 5. Five minutes' rest in some snow-drift on the plain is enough, in certain conditions of fatigue and temperature, to paralyze the energies of the strongest man, and make him welcome any fate if only let alone to take his ease. We recall more than one time when we would have given all we possessed simply to have been permitted to lie down in a snowbank for ten minutes; and left to ourselves we should certainly have done so. Some of the best dog-drivers on the plains have related to us similar experiences, where the inertia of a poudre day on the prairie seemed too intense to be resisted. III. STILL DAYS. 1. THOUGH not so dangerous, the still days are the coldest. There are every winter a dozen or more days so magically still that all the usual sounds of nature seem to be suspended; when the ice cracks miles away with a report like that of a cannon; when the breaking of a twig reaches one like the falling of a tree; come back from the yielding snow like the crunching of an iron heel through gravel; when every artificial sound is exaggerated a hundredfold, and nature seems to start at every break in the intense silence. when one's own footsteps 2. The atmosphere is as clear as crystal, and the range of vision seems to be unlimited. Seen from a window, from the cosy limits of an almost hermetically-sealed room, the clear sunshine and crisp freshness of the day appears to invite one forth to enjoy its seeming mildness. But the native knows better than to venture out. A fifteen minutes' walk in that clear ether is a fifteen minutes' fight for existence. Ah, it is cold beyond belief. The spirit thermometer registers a temperature away down in the forties. 3. On such a day one may stand for hours in the snow, with moccasined feet, and leave no trace of moisture behind. The snow is granulated like sand; there is no adhesiveness in it. It is as difficult to draw a sledge through it as through a bed of sand. Slipperiness has gone out of it. A horse gives out in a few minutes. And yet the aspect of all nature is calm, still, and equable as on a May day. 4. One of these still nights upon the prairie is unspeakably awful. Scraping away the snow, the blankets and robes are spread down. Your heaviest coat is donned, and the hood carefully pulled up over the heavy fur cap upon your head; the largest moccasins and thickest socks are drawn on; huge leather mittens extending to the elbows, and trebly lined come next; you lie down and draw all the available robes and blankets about you. 5. Then begins the cold. The frost comes out of the clear, gray sky with still, silent vigor. The temperature sinks down into the thirties and forties below zero. You are tired, perhaps, and sleep comes by the mere force of fatigue. But never from your waking brain goes the consciousness of cold. You lie with tightly-folded arms and up-gathered knees, and shiver beneath all your coverings, until forced to rise and seek safety by the fire. Definitions.-I. Miräġe', a phenomenon which causes remote objects to seem double, as if reflected in a mirror, or to appear as if suspended in the air. 1. Etched, sketched. 3. Limned, drawn, painted. 5. Phan tăş ma gō'ri a, false images. Kaleidoscope, an instrument which exhibits its contents, consisting of pieces of colored glass reflected in an endless variety of beautiful forms, on being turned slowly with the fingers. Ignis-făt'ū us, a light ALT. V.-10. which appears in the night over marshy grounds, very misleading to travelers. Hence follows the use of the word here, meaning a delusion; that which invites by the prospect of escape. 7. Soŭgh, a hollow murmur or roaring. II. 1. Sein ́til lāt ing, sparkling. Im păl ́pa ble, not to be felt. 2. Sĩ rŏe'eo, a destructive local wind, experienced chiefly in southern Europe. 3. Syn on'y moŭs, expressing the same thing. If no words are synonymous except those which are identical in use and meaning, then there are not more than ten in the language. But the term more properly denotes that the words in question approach each other so nearly that they can in most cases be used interchangeably. 4. In er'ti a, want of activity. III. 2. Hermět ́ie al ly-sealed, closed so that air can neither enter nor escape. 3. Ad he'sive ness, the quality of sticking or adhering. 42. AUNT DOLEFUL'S VISIT. 1. How do you do, Cornelia? I heard you were sick, and I stepped in to cheer you up a little. My friends often say, "It's such a comfort to see you, Aunt Doleful. You have such a flow of conversation, and are so lively." Besides, I said to myself as I came up the stairs, "Perhaps it's the last time I'll ever see Cornelia Jane alive." 2. You don't mean to die yet, eh? Well, now, how do you know? You can't tell. You think you are getting better; but there was poor Mrs. Jones sitting up, and every one saying how smart she was, and all of a sudden she was taken with spasms in the heart, and went off like a flash. 3. But you must be careful, and not get anxious or excited. Keep quite calm, and don't fret about any thing. Of course, things can't go on just as if you were downstairs; and I wondered whether you knew your little Billie was sailing about in a tub on the mill-pond, and that your little Sammy was letting your little Jimmy down from the veranda roof in a clothes-basket. 4. Goodness; what's the matter? I guess Providence 'll take care of them. Don't look so. You thought Bridget was watching them? Well, no, she is n't. I saw her talking to a man at the gate. He looked to me like a burglar. No doubt she let him take the impression of the doorkey in wax, and then he'll get in and murder you all. There was a family at Kobble Hill all killed last week for fifty dollars. 5. How is Mr. Kobble? Well, but finds it warm in town, eh? Well, I should think he would. They are dropping You must prepare down by hundreds there with sunstroke. your mind to have him brought home any day. Anyhow, a trip on these railroad trains is just risking your life every time you take one. Back and forth every day as he is, is just trifling with danger. 6. Dear, dear! now to think what dreadful things hang over us all the time! Dear, dear! Scarlet fever has broken out in the village, Cornelia. Lit tle Isaac Potter has it, and I saw your Jimmy playing with him last Saturday. 7. Well, I must be going now. I've got another sick friend, and I sha n't consider my duty done unless I cheer her up a little before I sleep. Good-by. How pale you look, Cornelia ! I don't believe you have a good doctor. Do send him away and try some one else. You don't look so well as you did when I came in. But if any thing happens, send for me at once. If I can't do any thing else, I can cheer you up a little. 43. DELORAINE'S RIDE. 1. THE Lady forgot her purpose high, 2. A stark, moss-trooping Scott was he, |