The last severe
frost, as it turned out, of the season, was possessing the earth. The sun
was low in the wintry sky, and what seemed a very cold mist up in the air
hid him from the earth. I was walking along a path in a field close by a
hedge. A tree had been cut down, and lay upon the grass. A short distance
from it lay its own figure marked out in hoar-frost. There alone was there
any hoar-frost on the field; the rest was all of the loveliest tenderest
green. I will not say the figure was such an exact resemblance as a
photograph would have been; still it was an indubitable likeness. It
appeared to the hasty glance that not a branch not a knot of the upper
side of the tree at least was left unrepresented in shining and glittering
whiteness upon the green grass. It was very pretty, and, I confess, at
first, very puzzling. I walked on, meditating on the phenomenon, till at
length I found out its cause. The hoar-frost had been all over the field in
the morning. The sun had been shining for a time, and had melted the frost
away, except where he could only cast a shadow. As he rose and rose,
the shadow of the tree had shortened and come nearer and nearer to its
original, growing more and more like as it came nearer, while the frost
kept disappearing as the shadow withdrew its protection.
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