skirted hills, and the tender curves of pale azure against which their whiteness is outlined. It is all far beyond language.

On any bright, still morning go with me from North Conway to Intervale. But a step from the village street and we are in the company of the pine trees-rank upon rank of tall, straight columns. How marvellously tall and straight they are, and what fascinating glimpses they afford of lovely white solitudes! There is a soft, light breeze that plays in their feathery tops, evoking a delicate music, like the sea heard from afar; and, through openings in the black-green foliage, we get vistas of blue, pale, sun-suffused serene. How our hearts swell as we gaze! Did not the frost prick our memories, reminding us that it is too cold for sky-gazing, we should stand long, in a trance of wonder and joy.

We take a few hasty steps, to quicken the blood, then stop again, this time to examine a line of tiny footprints, nay, many lines, that cross and pass and re

something better suited to his taste improvident Bohemian, packing up and moving in the depths of winter, instead of staying at home, in the midst of plenty, like his little red relative !

And now, as the pines grow thinner, we encounter a group of white birches. Look through the tangle of twigs, at the white burnished mountains, at the sky's tender blue; and look at the shadow-etching, every thread-like stem distinctly and exquisitely marked on the radiant surface of the snow!

Now we come to the end of the woods, and face to face with the great northern group of mountains. Carter and Wild Cat seem carved from sapphire; Washington leans, all dazzling white, against the curving azure, the too intense glory of his soaring crest touched with a floating pearlhued film. The glistening reaches of the intervale; the clear, brown outlines of the lower hills; the scarred, icy fronts of the ledges; the towering grandeur of the great peaks; the startling gamut of

color; the soft, blue depths

of sky, one's soul must needs expand to take in the picture.

The road over the intervale, crossing the Saco, wins one often to its shining level. The elms keep all their dignity, though denuded of their lovely fringes; the straight young maples cluster together, as if for mutual protection from the wild winds that sweep along the narrow plain. Here, there, everywhere, are empty nests. They must have been well made, to stand secure against so many storms. The little deserted homes are full of snow, and add a pathetic feature to the landscape. At a certain bridge there is a tall, slender tree with a bough thrown out directly over the stream. There swings an oriole's nest. I always give it a glance in my walks, and think of the little family brought up there between sapphire and silver.

The river is a glistening path of ice, through which the current breaks and plashes and ripples when the days are mild. Looking up stream, across the dark green belt of pines, you may see the Olympian group descending out of heaven, with lesser hills kneeling about, as if in adoration. Close in front, as one faces the west, is the Moat range, white-clothed, majestic, shadows in the deep folds of its skirts, sunshine on its shining peaks.

The little village of North Conway stretches itself dozing on the Saco's jewelled plain. The great hotels, in fact, are sound asleep, except the one pleasant hostelry whose doors stand wide open the round year. Their verandas are banked with snow that has drifted there through many a wild storm. Down

"Every thread-like stem distinctly and exquisitely marked."

cading the house-doors, piled high against the dull red barns, glistening like mimic hills on the sidewalks, and barring the streets against the plunging horses. How the snow-stars fly as the earliest sleigh goes reeling through the dazzling heaps! The still heavenliness of a winter dawn yet fills the shining valley. A flush of rose is yet on the morning's cheek. Now come with creaking sound the great logging sleds. The sturdy logger has eaten his hasty breakfast, and with jingling bells that time each movement of the horses he cuts his bright way along the street, across the uneven fields, to the silent, transfigured forest.

Snow is the beauteous benefactor of the mountaineer. When the skies darken, and the air is sharp with prickings of frost, his hopes brighten; but if these signs fail, his spirits fall with the rising mercury. How is the contract he has made to keep roaring next summer's fires in the great hotel kitchens to be met? How are his pockets to be filled, his horses fed, his wood-cutters paid? These

row valley. Throwing off his heavy winter gear, our logger groans in spirit as he makes up his mind that he is a ruined man. But lo, a white mystery clothes the world! The winter miracle is enacted. He plucks up his courage, and while yet the laughing light dallies with the cold white peaks, men, horses, sleds, are out and off, a picturesque procession, winding up the bristling, precipitous hills.

If you like a novel spectacle, a gay experience, mount one of the rude equipages, and, holding firmly by any support at hand, go bouncing, bumping, rolling, careering over the logging road. Many thaws and freezes have lined it with most exhilarating humps and hillocks; and once you give yourself up heartily to this kind of excursion, you will find it far superior in tonic qualities to massage or Roman bath. You cannot, however, get the full benefit open to you unless you ride home from the far mountain-side, sitting on top of the high, compact load of wood. Then as your horses plunge down icy steeps, and you clutch the driver with a nervous