| Who he was and Where he was, 3

 

had no bold elevations or grand-shaped peaks.
But they rose to a good height notwithstanding,
and the weather on the top of them in the winter-
time was often bitter and fierce—bitter with keen
frost, and fierce with as wild winds as ever blew.
Of both frost and wind the village at their feet
had its share too, but of course they were not so
bad down below, for the hills were a shelter from
the wind, and it is always colder the farther you
go up and away from the heart of this warm ball
of rock and earth upon which we live. When
Willie’s father was riding across the great moor-
land of those desolate hills, and the people in the
village would be saying to each other how bitterly
cold it was, he would be thinking how snug and
warm it was down there, and how nice it would be
to turn a certain corner on the road back, and slip
at once out of the freezing wind that had it all its
own way up among the withered gorse and heather
of the wide expanse where he pursued his dreary
journey. , :

For his part, Willie cared very little what the
weather was, but took it as it came. In the hot
summer, he would. lie in the long grass and get
cool; in the cold winter, he would scamper about
and get warm. When his hands were as cold as
icicles, his cheeks would be red as apples, When
his mother took his hands in hers, and chafed
them, full of pity for their suffering, as she thought