of them, looking hoary and venerable with the snow-dust that had got
amongst his brown curls. And then, to punish Cousin Eustace for
advising them to dig such a tumble-down cavern, the children attacked
him in a body, and so bepelted him with snowballs that he was fain to
take to his heels.

So he ran away, and went into the woods, and thence to the margin of
Shadow Brook, where he could hear the streamlet grumbling along, under
great overhanging banks of snow and ice, which would scarcely let it see
the light of day. There were adamantine icicles glittering around all
its little cascades. Thence be strolled to the shore of the lake, and
beheld a white, untrodden plain before him, stretching from his own feet
to the foot of Monument Mountain. And, it being now almost sunset,
Eustace thought that he had never beheld anything so fresh and beautiful
as the scene. He was glad that the children were not with him; for
their lively spirits and tumble-about activity would quite have chased
away his higher and graver mood, so that he would merely have been merry
(as he had already been, the whole day long), and would not have known
the loveliness of the winter sunset among the hills.

When the sun was fairly down, our friend Eustace went home to eat his
supper. After the meal was over, he betook himself to the study, with a
purpose, I rather imagine, to write an ode, or two or three sonnets, or
verses of some kind or other, in praise of the purple and golden clouds
which he had seen around the setting sun. But, before he had hammered
out the very first rhyme, the door opened, and Primrose and Periwinkle
made their appearance.

"Go away, children! I can't be troubled with you now!" cried the
student, looking over his shoulder, with the pen between his fingers.