My dearest Madam,
Your obliged
and faithful
Emily Montague.



LETTER 48.


To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Silleri, Dec. 27.

After a fortnight's snow, we have had near as much clear blue sky
and sunshine: the snow is six feet deep, so that we may be said to walk
on our own heads; that is, speaking _en philosophe_, we occupy the
space we should have done in summer if we had done so; or, to explain
it more clearly, our heels are now where our heads should be.

The scene is a little changed for the worse: the lovely landscape is
now one undistinguished waste of snow, only a little diversified by the
great variety of ever-greens in the woods: the romantic winding path
down the side of the hill to our farm, on which we used to amuse
ourselves with seeing the beaux serpentize, is now a confused,
frightful, rugged precipice, which one trembles at the idea of
ascending.

There is something exceedingly agreable in the whirl of the
carrioles, which fly along at the rate of twenty miles an hour; and