$6 TANGLEWOOD PLAY-ROOM.

see so far, among the eddying drifts that whitened all the
atmosphere. It seemed as if the hills were giants, and
were flinging monstrous handfuls of snow at one another,
in their enormous sport. So thick were the fluttering
snow-flakes, that even the trees, midway down the valley,
were hidden by them the greater part of the time. Some-
times, it is true, the little prisoners of Tanglewood could
discern a dim outline of Monument Mountain, and the
smooth whiteness of the frozen lake at its base, and the
black or gray tracts of woodland in the nearer landscape.
But these were merely peeps through the tempest.
Nevertheless, the children rejoiced greatly in the snow-
storm. They had already made acquaintance with it, by
tumbling heels over head into its highest drifts, and fling-
ing snow at one another, as we have just fancied the
erkshire mountains to be doing. And now they had
come back to their spacious play-room, which was as big
as the great drawing-room, and was lumbered with all
sorts of playthings, large and small. The biggest was
a rocking-horse, that looked like a real pony; and there
was a whole family of wooden, waxen, plaster, and china
dolls, besides rag-babies; and blocks enough to build
Bunker Hill Monument, and nine-pins, and balls, and
humming-tops, and battledores, and grace-sticks, and
skipping-ropes, and more of such valuable property than
I could tell of in a printed page. But the children liked
the snow-storm better than them all. It suggested so many
brisk enjoyments for to-morrow, and all the remainder
of the winter. The sleigh-ride; the slides down hill
iito the valley ; the snow-images that were to be shaped