CHAPTER I.

It was about the middle of November.  There had been a long rain storm, ending in sleet and snow, and now the sun was shining brightly on a landscape sheeted with ice:  walks and roads were slippery with it, every tree and shrub was encased in it, and glittering and sparkling as if loaded with diamonds, as its branches swayed and tossed in the wind.  At Ion Mrs. Elsie Travilla stood at the window of her dressing-room gazing with delighted eyes upon the lovely scene.

“How beautiful!” she said softly to herself; “and my Father made it all.  ’He gives snow like wool:  he scattereth the hoar frost like ashes.  He casteth forth his ice like morsels.’

“Ah, good morning, my dears,” as the door opened and Rosie and Walter came in together.

“Good morning, dearest mamma,” they returned, hastening to her to give and receive the affectionate kiss with which they were accustomed to meet at the beginning of a new day.

“I’m so glad the long storm is over at last,” said Rosie; “it is really delightful to see the sunshine once more.”

“And the beautiful work of the Frost king reflecting his rays,” added her mother, calling their attention to the new beauties of the ever attractive landscape spread out before them.

Both exclaimed in delight “How beautiful, mamma!” Rosie adding, “It must be that the roads are in fine condition for sleighing.  I hope we can go.”

“O mamma, can’t we?” cried Walter.  “Won’t you give us a holiday?”

“I shall take the question into consideration,” she answered with an indulgent smile; “we will perhaps discuss it at the breakfast table:  but now we will have our reading together.”

At that very time Capt.  Raymond and Violet in her boudoir at Woodburn, were also discussing the state of the roads and the advisability of dispensing with school duties for the day that all the family might enjoy the rather rare treat of a sleigh-ride.

“You would enjoy it, my love?” he said inquiringly.

“Very much—­in company with my husband and the children,” she returned; “yet I would not wish to influence you to decide against your convictions in regard to what is right and wise.”

“We will go,” he said, smiling fondly upon her, “I can not bear to have you miss the pleasure; nor the children either for that matter, though I am a little afraid I might justly be deemed weakly indulgent in according them a holiday again so soon:  it is against my principles to allow lessons to be set aside for other than very weighty reasons; it is a matter of so great importance that they be trained to put duties first, giving pleasure a secondary place.”

“But they are so good and industrious,” said Violet, “and the sleighing is not likely to last long.  It seldom does with us.”

“And they have been so closely confined to the house of late, by the inclemency of the weather,” he added.  “Yes:  they shall go; for it will do them a great deal of good physically, I think, and health is, after all, of more consequence for them than rapid advancement in their studies.”