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HE first part of December found snow upon the ground around the Condit farm. There had been that early-season gale of rain and sleet, with subsequent freezing, on the night the Squire had rescued the Indian; but the frost had soon melted and for days thereafter the weather had been crisp and bright. Now, however, after two days and nights of steady snowing, the sun came up one morning to slant glaringly across an earth blanket of dazzling snow.

Mehitable, who was a true out-of-doors girl, revelled in the depths of the drifts.

"Why, 'tis as high as the fence along the road by the north pasture," she was saying excitedly, unwinding her long woolen tippet and shaking her homespun skirt. She leaned over to pull from her feet an old pair of boots, which had belonged to her brother John.

"B-r-r!" shivered Charity, looking up from her knitting as she sat huddled by the fire. "I don't see how you can like it so well, Hitty! 'Tis most uncomfortable, I think, to be out in the snow!"

Tis monstrous pretty, the snow is," returned her sister, moving over to the fireplace to warm her cold hands before the blaze. "It sparkles so, and the shadows cast by the pines are as as can be!"