The Three Golden Apples (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys")

Excerpt

The snow-storm lasted another day; but what became of it afterwards, I cannot possibly imagine.  At any rate, it entirely cleared away, during the night; and when the sun arose, the next morning, it shone brightly down on as bleak a tract of hill-country, here in Berkshire, as could be seen anywhere in the world.  The frost-work had so covered the windowpanes that it was hardly possible to get a glimpse at the scenery outside.  But, while waiting for breakfast, the small populace of Tanglewood had scratched peepholes with their finger-nails, and saw with vast delight that—­unless it were one or two bare patches on a precipitous hillside, or the gray effect of the snow, intermingled with the black pine forest—­all nature was as white as a sheet.  How exceedingly pleasant!  And, to make it all the better, it was cold enough to nip one’s nose short off!  If people have but life enough in them to bear it, there is nothing that so raises the spirits, and makes the blood ripple and dance so nimbly, like a brook down the slope of a hill, as a bright, hard frost.