knows our virtues,—­at least if they believe half we tell them,—­and for delicate beauty, that rare plant, I should look among the girls of the New England hills as confidently as anywhere, and I have traveled as far south as New Jersey, and west of the Genesee Valley.  Indeed, it would be easy to show that the parents of the pretty girls in the West emigrated from New England.  And yet—­such is the mystery of Providence—­no one would expect that one of the sweetest and most delicate flowers that blooms, the trailing. arbutus, would blossom in this inhospitable climate, and peep forth from the edge of a snowbank at that.

It seems unaccountable to a superficial observer that the thousands of people who are dissatisfied with their climate do not seek a more congenial one—­or stop grumbling.  The world is so small, and all parts of it are so accessible, it has so many varieties of climate, that one could surely suit himself by searching; and, then, is it worth while to waste our one short life in the midst of unpleasant surroundings and in a constant friction with that which is disagreeable?  One would suppose that people set down on this little globe would seek places on it most agreeable to themselves.  It must be that they are much more content with the climate and country upon which they happen, by the accident of their birth, than they pretend to be.

III

Home sympathies and charities are most active in the winter.  Coming in from my late walk,—­in fact driven in by a hurrying north wind that would brook no delay,—­a wind that brought snow that did not seem to fall out of a bounteous sky, but to be blown from polar fields,—­I find the Mistress returned from town, all in a glow of philanthropic excitement.

There has been a meeting of a woman’s association for Ameliorating the Condition of somebody here at home.  Any one can belong to it by paying a dollar, and for twenty dollars one can become a life Ameliorator,—­a sort of life assurance.  The Mistress, at the meeting, I believe, “seconded the motion” several times, and is one of the Vice-Presidents; and this family honor makes me feel almost as if I were a president of something myself.  These little distinctions are among the sweetest things in life, and to see one’s name officially printed stimulates his charity, and is almost as satisfactory as being the chairman of a committee or the mover of a resolution.  It is, I think, fortunate, and not at all discreditable, that our little vanity, which is reckoned among our weaknesses, is thus made to contribute to the activity of our nobler powers.  Whatever we may say, we all of us like distinction; and probably there is no more subtle flattery than that conveyed in the whisper, “That’s he,” “That’s she.”