WERE THE FATES UNKIND.
TEIANKSGIVING Morning. The diffused light of an
other day, breaking over the eastern hills, has already
chased the deeper shades of darkness far away. But
the cool breath of night still lingers in the air.
Throughout the night the Frost Fairies have been at
work transforming the naked'fields and woods; and now re
vealed in the morning light, they appear clothed . in their
royal robes of white. Nothing has escaped. Every blade of
grass, in the meadows, brown and sere; every branch and
twig upon the leaf-forsaken trees; the shrubbery and the
fences by the wayside; and even the soiled and muddy earth
of the highway, have each received a magical touch; while
the evergreens and firs seem to have received an especially
dainty one, as they stand in the soft morning light, a
frosty filigree of while and green, which, swayed by the gen
tle breeze, shakes forth a fleecy shower (if snow.
Old Chanticleer is first awake, and soon has set the
echoes of the morning a-flying. And why should he not?
Did not last night his master take away his worst enemy,—
that big, pompous, strutting turkey-gobbler, while he, him
self, has escaped the chopping block and axe? Of course he
has, and he has a right to crow. And so the clarion
notes burst forth once more,—a merry, careless sound by a
merry careless bird.
The noise awakens the Professor, who arises hastily to
find that the sun is just rising bright and clear, and all the
world awake and merry.
He recalls his promise to himself that he would go hunt
ing today, and so he dresses accordingly and appears at
breakfast a little later, a merry man in a careless mood.
A SKtTCH,