serves that their long slender leaves are drawn closer together, giving a pinched look to the tufts, and the young twigs betray an inclination to droop. The hemlocks also lose something of their brilliancy. The balsams do not seem to feel the cold at all.
Friday, 16th.—Very cold, clear day. Thermometer 8° below zero this morning again.
Looking abroad through the windows such weather as this, in a climate so decided as ours, one might almost be persuaded that grass, and foliage, and flowers are dreamy fancies of ours, which, like the jewel-bearing trees of fairy-land, have never had a positive, real existence. You look in vain over the gardens, and lawns, and meadows, for any traces of the roses and violets which delighted you last summer, and which you are beginning to long for again. But turn your eyes within doors, and here you shall find the most ample proofs that leaves and blossoms really grow upon this earth of ours; here, within the walls of our dwellings, we need no green-house, or conservatory, or flower-stand to remind us of this fact. Here, winter as well as summer, we find traces enough of the existence of that beautiful part of the creation, the vegetation; winter and summer, the most familiar objects with which we are surrounded, which hourly contribute to our convenience and comfort, bear the impress of the plants and flowers in their varied forms and colors. We seldom remember, indeed, how large a portion of our ideas of grace and beauty are derived from the plants, how constantly we turn to them for models. It is worth while to look about the first room you enter, to note how very many proofs of this you will find there. Scarcely an article of furniture, from the most simple and homely to the most elegant and elaborate, but carries about it some imitation of this kind,
