snow, which stretched far whiter than the pure white of the birch trees
in the nearest groves. Now the last night but one of the old year had
brought a fresh downfall, unusually heavy; the long, straight railway
track, and the sleigh-road which was kept open between the station and
Turrifs Settlement, had been obliterated by it. Alec Trenholme had awoke
that morning to observe that his little station of new wood, and the
endless line of rough telegraph poles, were the only remaining signs of
man's lordship of earth, as far as his eyes could see. It was upon this
sight, when the snow clouds had fled, that he had seen a scarlet sun
come up; over the same scene he had watched it roll its golden chariot
all day, and, tinging the same unbroken drifts, it had sunk scarlet
again in the far southwest. He had not been far from his house, and no
one, in train, or sleigh, or on snow-shoes, had happened to come near
it.

He would have gone himself to Turrifs for milk, for the pleasure of
exchanging a word with his fellow-men, and for air and exercise, had it
not been that he had hourly expected to see an engine, with its
snow-plough, approaching on the rails. Conversation by telegraph would
have been a relief to him, but the wires seemed to have succumbed in
more than one place to their weight of snow, and there was nothing for
this young station-master to do but wait, and believe that communication
would be re-established over the road and the wires sooner or later. In
the meantime he suffered no personal inconvenience, unless loneliness
can be thus named, for he had abundance of food and fuel. He watched the
bright day wane and the sun of the old year set, and filled his stove
with wood, and ate his supper, and told himself that he was a very
fortunate fellow and much better off than a large proportion of men.

It is not always when we tell ourselves that we are well off that we are