I walk among the flowers again,
Between the tall red hollyhocks,
Here I shall find you as before,
Asleep within your fastened door,—
My lazy four-o’clocks!
MARGARET JOHNSON.
THE SNOW WITCH.
There was skating on the ponds where the snow had been cleared; there were icicles on the trees, nice blue, clear skies in the daytime, cold, bright, wintry moonlight at night.
Lovely weather for Christmas holidays! But to one little five-year-old man, nothing had seemed lovely this Christmas, though he was spending it with his Father and Mother and his big sisters at Grandpapa’s beautiful old country house, where everybody did all that could be done to make Grandpapa’s guests happy. For poor little Roger was pining for his elder brother, Lawson, whom he had not seen for more than four months. Lawson was eight, and had been at school since Michaelmas, and there he had caught a fever which had made it not safe for him to join the rest of the family till the middle of January. But he was coming to-morrow.