of her husband by humbly thanking God that
she was born in the temperate climate of
England. This, indeed, is no small blessing. In the
south of Russia, for instance, the climate is
considered mild for that country; yet last winter
there were frequently twenty-three degrees of
cold in the towns, and as many as twenty-eight
degrees in the open fields beyond. It was a great
calamity; and now, as the frost and snow are
coming on again, I will pass one of the long evenings
in noting down some sufferings I witnessed,
and some of which I heard, on credible authority,
twelve months ago. Perhaps they may touch
the hearts of those who are enabled by warm
clothes and warm houses to make light of the
weather, and so lead them into deeds of active
benevolence towards those whom poverty renders
powerless against that terrible enemy.

Such a winter as that of 1860-1 has not been
seen in this part of the empire for twenty years.
Ships are frozen in the ports and far out at sea,
still, at last, from their unquiet rocking. Many
prudent captains break up the ice round them
every morning, lest their timbers should be in-
jured. But others doubt the wisdom of this.
Some, when surprised by ice, think it best to
cut the anchor and drift away. Some quietly
let nature take her course and their ships do not
seem to fare the worse for their inactivity. Carts
charged with grain and tallow, driven by men
clad in sheepskin, and muffled up till they are
mere shapeless masses, crawl along the solid sea
loading and unloading the ships which lie rigid
and motionless in the offing, so far from shore
that the naked eye cannot see where the restless
bosom of the main, begins to throb again;
but a telescope will show us a liquid expanse of
blue with a fanciful mist rising in strange forms
from it, showing that it will freeze still farther
ahead to-morrow. Cheerily comes the cry of
the sailors through the frozen air, " oi-oy-oh!
oi-oy-oh!"

The streets of the town are wonderfully gay
and picturesque. Sledges with the famous
Russian trotters, move gallantly about over the
clean white snow, the swift horses gingling their
merry bells, and tossing their handsome heads
in their gay silver harness. Fair fur-clad ladies
talking pleasantly, and making quite a holiday
time of it, go jaunting about in delightful high
spirits. The awful winter is to them a mere
change of pleasures; they take their brisk
recreation of sledging by day, and muster at
brilliant balls and assemblies at night.
Nothing can quench their thirst for excitement and
society: but the theatres are closed by the
police, lest the coachman waiting for playgoers
should be frozen on his box. The tarif ceases for
public carriages, and the droschky-drivers hardy
enough to brave the weather, may charge their
own fares. Gentlemen walk about with pelisses of
the black fox, costing as much as eight hundred
pounds a piece, because this fur is the warmest
and lightest; for even fashion has reason in its
caprices. Persons less wealthy, or less luxurious,
wrap themselves in the skins of the racoon, or
the skunk, the bear, or the beaver. Ladies go
clothed in sables, the finest of which should be
of dark hair tinged with grey. The yellow fox
gives a good warm light fur, but it is discredited
on account of its cheapness.

Our houses are, in the south, not so well built
for this weather as those in St. Petersburg and
the north. Not only do our windows freeze,
but the frost and snow force their way inside
the rooms, and lie inches deep of a morning
under the balcony-doors and between the double
windows. But, by means of ovens between the
walls, which we call stoves, we can contrive to
keep our rooms facing the south at about fourteen
degrees of heat Réaumur. An iron stove
when it burns well, which is not often, will
bring even a northerly room up to eighteen
degrees, but this is too warm. It requires some
management to get a comfortable temperature,
which is about fifteen degrees Réaumur. An
English fire-place, however large and well fed,
will by no means make head against the difficulty.

It is not an agreeable thing to have one's
face frying and one's shoulders freezing, or one
elbow broiling and the other racked with
rheumatism, so that we trust much to stoves; and
the English open grates used by the wealthy
are considered merely pretty toys for ornament.
Wood is very dear, and coal warms best. A
stove may be warmed with coals by good
management for threepence-halfpenny a day;
the cinders afterwards doing good service in
samovars for tea-making, as well as for cooking
purposes. They help particularly well to make
a clear fire for broiling.

To heat our stoves (the ovens in the walls)
much care is required. Nobody but a Russian
knows how to manage a Russian stove properly.
Some years ago, a Persian ambassador arrived
at Moscow, and attended a ball there. Returning
late and very cold to his hotel, he found
everybody but his own servants asleep. He
ordered some of them to light the stove in his
bedroom, and was suffocated in the night by
the fumes of it, which issued through a chink in
the wall.

We suffer much from our taste for finery,
and because moderate fortunes are rare in Russia.
People are usually very wealthy, or they have
hardly enough to keep body and soul together.
Unhappily, also, amongst us an empty purse is
no talisman against luxury and ostentation.
Thus, the noble or the spendthrift may live
agreeably through the winter swathed in black
fur or sables, and the peasant may keep himself
warm in sheepskin; but the petty tradesman,
the lawyer's clerk, the poor student, the shopman,
and the shopwoman, have a hard time of it.
There are good pelisses at a hundred English
pounds a-piece, so good that the wearer does
not know if it is cold or not when out of doors.
There are warm sledges, lined with furs, with
fur bags for the feet, for the flush and fair to
gad about in. There are warm stoves, warm
curtains, warm beds, for the wealthy; but for
the decent poor are none of these things, nor any
substitutes for them.