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Rh weather for the last week or two. The lake is still more than half open. A pretty flock of sparrows came to cheer us this afternoon.

Friday, 5th.—A very stormy day; cold, high wind; snow drifting in thick clouds. Yet strange to say, though so frosty and piercing, the wind blew from the southward. Our high winds come very generally from that quarter; often they are sirocco-like, even in winter, but at times they are chilly.

All the usual signs of severe cold show themselves: the smoke rises in dense, white, broken puffs from the chimneys; the windows are glazed with frost-work, and the snow creaks as we move over it.

Saturday, 6th.—Milder and quieter. Roads much choked with snow-drifts; the mails irregular; travelling very difficult. Lake still lying open, dark, and gray, with ice in the bays. There was a pretty, fresh ripple passing over it this morning.

It is Twelfth-Night, an old holiday, much less observed with us than in Europe; it is a great day with young people and children in France and England, the closing of the holidays. It is kept here now and then in some families. But what is better, our churches are now open for the services of the Epiphany, so peculiarly appropriate to this New World, where, Gentiles ourselves, we are bearing the light of the Gospel onward to other Gentile races still in darkness.

Monday, 8th.—Cold night. The lake is frozen. We have seen the last of its beautiful waters for three months, or more.