A Versailles Christmas-Tide

But with the early nights of January a sudden frost seized the town in its icy grip, and, almost before we had time to realise the c

surface of the canal beyond the tapis vert, and in a twinkling Versailles became a tow

among the great trees of the avenues, bore so strong a resemblance to the pixies who lurk in caves and woods, that we almost expected to see them vanish into some crevice

irst step taken from the heated hotel hall into the outer air felt like putting one's face against an iceberg. All wraps of ordina

, our backs never felt really warm. It was only when night had fallen and the outside shutters were firmly

t the night-watches was her secret. A half-waking boy might catch a glimpse of her, apparently robed as by day, stealing out of the room; but so noiseless were her movements, that neither of the invalids ever saw her stealing in. They had a secret theory that in her own little apartment, which wa

, muffled in thick wraps, over their little charcoal stoves, lacking energy to call attention to their wares. The sage with the onions was absent, but the pretty girl in the red hood held her accustomed place, w

t despite the rigour of the atmosphere their heads, with the hair neatly dressed à la Chinoise, remained uncovered. It struck our unaccustomed eyes oddly to see t

r trust; for even in dry sunny weather mud seems a spontaneous production that renders goloshes a necessity. And when frost holds the high-standing city in its frigid grasp the extreme cold

dawn to drive into Paris with farm produce were taken dead from their market-carts at the end of the journey-the weathe

snug Chateau gardens were occupied by little groups, which usually consisted of a bonne and a baby, or of a chevalier and a hopelessly unclassable dog; for the dogs of Versailles belong to breeds that no man li

od like guardian angels of the scene. They had lost their air of aloofness and were at one with the white earth, just as the forest trees