we crowded joyfully round a crackling, sparkling wood-fire, even while our faces glowed with the intense heat, cold shivers were creeping down our backs, and sudden draughts from an opening door set our teeth chattering.  I often wished myself on a spit, to revolve slowly before the fire until thoroughly roasted.  Not from any want of air, I assure you, we children were always breaking panes of glass on the bitterest days, and the glazier was never known to come under a week to replace them.  Why people should wish to revive, and live through again, the miseries of such a frost-nipped childhood, I cannot imagine.

I, for one, love a snug house, even a warm house.  I am of a chilly temperament, and subject to rheumatism, horrible colds, &c.  Fresh air is my bane.  I banish all books on the subject from my table.  I studiously avoid all notorious fresh-air lovers, or try in every way to bring over the poor, misguided mortals to my views; but it is of no use.  Fresh air is the fashion, and is run to extremes, as all fashions must be.  I call in a physician; lo! fresh air is recommended as a tonic.  I give a party; of course my windows are all thrown open, and foolish young girls, in the thinnest of white muslins, are standing in the draught; and such a whirlwind is raised by the flirting of fans, and the rush of the dancers, that I am blown, like a dry leaf, into a corner, where I stand shivering, and making rueful attempts to appear smiling and hospitable.  I go out to pass a social afternoon with a friend, and am set down in a room just above the freezing-point, with a little crack opened in the window, and all the doors flying, to change the air.  I ride in the omnibus, and am almost choked with my bonnet-strings, such a furious draught meets me in the face, and when, with infinite pains, I have secured the only tolerably warm corner, my next neighbor becomes very faint, and must have the window open.  Even the poor babies are not safe from this popular insanity.  You may see the little victims any day, taking an airing, with their little red noses and watery eyes peeping forth from under the cap and feathers.  The old-fashioned blanket, in which the baby was done up head and all, like a bundle, is thrown aside.  The child is not quite so often carried upside down.  I suppose, under the new system, but what difference does it make whether the poor thing is smothered or frozen to death?

I never shall forget a long journey I took once with a friend who was raving mad on the subject of fresh air and cold water.  Every morning the windows were thrown wide open, and the blinds flung back with an energetic bang, while a stiff wintry wind whirled every thing about the room, and flapped the curtains against the ceiling.  And there she stood, declaring herself exhilarated, while her nose and lips turned from red to blue, and the tears ran down her cheeks.  I always took to flight.  Afterwards the poor auto-martyr went out to walk before breakfast, scornfully