ICE.

HE thermometer stood at ninety in the shade in my garden. There had fallen no rain in the south of England for up

wards of six weeks, except an occasional shower, of no more real refreshment to the parched ground than a teaspoonful of water would have been to a thirsty giant. I sat on the lawn under the shade of an apple-tree, and read the doleful account in the morning's newspaper of the damage already done by the drought, and the still further damage to be apprehended if the fierce sun continued to stream down upon the world much longer, without veiling his face with a few clouds and storms. Brown was the grass and sickly were the flowers; and the leaves on the tall tree-tops, though green and fresh, made no merry rustling to the gentle wind, for the simple reason that not a breath of air was stirring. I looked wistfully to the deep blue sky, in which there was not a speck of cloud that had a drop of

moisture in it, and bethought me how scant was in ordinary seasons the gratitude of the English for one of the greatest blessings of this or any other country. Having too much of a good thing, in the matter of rain, it is only when they suffer from the want of it that the dwellers in these isles, whether agriculturists or not, know what a blessing the rain is, just as, for a similar reason, most people undervalue their health, until the angelic visitant takes leave of them, perhaps to return no more. After a forty or fifty days' drought, it would be difficult even for Mr. Babbage, or Mr. George Bidder, to count up to within a hundred thousand pounds or so, the value to the farmers and gardeners of Great Britain and Ireland of one good drenching downfall of big round drops continued for four-and-twenty hours. From the blessings of the rain, as I was both warm and thirsty, my thoughts wandered to the blessings of the frost and the snow, and to that fairest production of the cold the clear, transparent, delicious ice, such as Lake Wenham and numberless Norwegian lakes, whose names no one has thought it worth while to promulgate, have for long years been in the habit of supplying to a world not sufficiently grateful for the luxury. As it happened, there was a remnant of pure Wenham in the house, brilliant as the Koh-i-noor. Placing a lump of the dainty bless

ing in a goblet, and pouring thereon the contents of a bottle of Brighton seltzer, I drank and was refreshed, and felt a physical as well as a moral conviction that ice was one of the greatest bounties of nature, and that those who do not consume it daily as an addendum to their diet, are ignorant of a cheap luxury, or thoughtlessly forego a healthful gratification to the palate. In the moist climate of the British Isles, where the commonest transitions of the weather are from wet to dry, and from dry to wet, we scarcely know what wholesome cold is, especially the clear, crisp cold that invigorates the whole system of the healthy human creature, and sets the blood coursing merrily through the veins. Sometimes, it is true, as Shakespeare sings, "The icicles hang by the wall, and Dick the shepherd bites his nail," to prevent his finger-tips from being frostbitten, but such hardy and vigorous seasons are rare and short as angel visits. Not perhaps more than once in seven years has the skater a fair chance for the enjoyment of his beautiful recreation. But when the ice will bear the weight of a crowd, it is one of the pleasantest sights in the world to witness the delight of the young and the middleaged English of both sexes, as they wend their way to the nearest water, skates in hand, ready for a pleasure as captivating to most people as the dance in a ball-room, and a thousand times more healthful.

If there be a happier being in the world at such a time than a nimble skater, male or female, it is the small boy upon a slide, rollicking, uproarious, blissful! Quick motion with little effort is always delightful, and in this respect both skating and sliding afford the nearest approach to bliss and to flying, which such wingless bipeds as men and women can ever hope to enjoy in their present state of existence. "I hate England," said a little Canadian boy of twelve years old, on board a steamer bound from New York to Liverpool, on his way to school at Harrow. 66 "Why?" said the astonished captain. "Because there's no skating, and the rivers never freeze there, and it's always raining," he replied, sulkily, yet defiantly; "and it's so jolly in Canada in the winter." Jack Frost, if not a jack of all trades, is a jack of many. As an agriculturist, he is as serviceable in producing a full crop as the sunshine or the rain, as every farmer will acknowledge. He destroys the noxious insects, that but for his exterminating touch would consume the early sown seed before it had time to germinate. Moreover, he infuses into the arable earth a chemical virtue that the warm moist atmosphere does not always contribute, and of which the beneficial results are apparent in the summer grass and the autumnal corn. As a scavenger he does more work in a night, by drying up the miry ways, than a million

of men with brooms and shovels could do in a week. As an engineer, he can build a bridge over the Thames or the St. Lawrence, not exactly so durable as Mr. Page's at Westminster, or Mr. Stephenson's at Montreal, but quite as solid as either while it lasts; and has been known to do such Titanic work in a single night, which is a feat that the engineering genius of mere Stephensons, Brunels, and Pages can never hope to accomplish. But it is as a working jeweller that Jack Frost is most conspicuous. By a breath he can transform the dew upon the grass into diamonds, make a roseleaf as beautiful as a brooch of malachite studded with brilliants, and convert the flimsy rope of the spider's web into a string of beaded pearls, such as empresses might envy, if any human jeweller could execute in more permanent form an adornment so lovely. Nor are these the only specimens of his handiwork. He can trace upon our windows the most delicate filagree work to which imagination can give almost any form it pleases, from that of the tree, the flower, or the leaf, to that of the whole forest, the flowing river, or a miniature Alp-Land, with the simulacra of Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, and the Wetterhorn in microscopic accuracy. Nature, so full of beautiful forms, offers nothing more beautiful in its kind than the icicle, produced by the mingled action of the sunshine and the frost;