If the one was as much as nine, the other was certainly not more than seven.

They were miserably clad; and the pavement was so cold, you would have thought no one could lay a naked foot on it unflinching.

Yet they came along waltzing, if you please, while the elder sang a tune to give them music.
The person who saw this, and whose heart was full of bitterness at the moment, pocketed a reproof which has been of use to him ever since, and which he now hands on, with his good wishes, to the reader.
At length, Edinburgh, with her satellite hills and all the sloping country, are sheeted up in white.

If it has happened in the dark hours, nurses pluck their children out of bed and run with them to some commanding window, whence they may see the change that has been worked upon earth's face.

'A' the hills are covered wi' snaw,' they sing, 'and Winter's noo come fairly!' And the children, marvelling at the silence and the white landscape, find a spell appropriate to the season in the words.