the centre of a bombardment of no mean order. It is also necessary
to state that the snow, which had been falling all day, had clothed
the lawns and house-tops in a dazzling drapery of white, and, not
content with having done this to the satisfaction of all, was still
falling, and, happily enough, as silently as usual. Were I the "wild
romancer" that I have been called, I might have had the snow fall
with a thunderous roar, but I cannot go to any such length. I love
my fellow-beings, but there is a limit to my philanthropy, and I
shall not have my snow fall noisily just to make a critic happy. I
might do it to save his life, for I should hate to have a man die
for the want of what I could give him with a stroke of my pen, and
without any special effort, but until that emergency arises I shall
not yield a jot in the manner of the falling of my snow.

Occasionally a belated home-comer would pass my house, the sleigh
-bells strung about the ample proportions of his steed jingling loud
above the roaring of the winds. My family had retired, and I sat
alone in the glow of the blazing log--a very satisfactory gas
affair--on the hearth. The flashing jet flames cast the usual
grotesque shadows about the room, and my mind had thereby been
reduced to that sensitive state which had hitherto betokened the
coming of a visitor from other realms--a fact which I greatly
regretted, for I was in no mood to be haunted. My first impulse,
when I recognized the on-coming of that mental state which is
evidenced by the goosing of one's flesh, if I may be allowed the
expression, was to turn out the fire and go to bed. I have always
found this the easiest method of ridding myself of unwelcome ghosts,
and, conversely, I have observed that others who have been haunted
unpleasantly have suffered in proportion to their failure to take
what has always seemed to me to be the most natural course in the