CHAPTER XV.
_December 25th._ Real Christmas weather--that is to say, the earth is as hard as a brickbat, and the wind freezes one to the very marrow.

To the rich man, with a good coal fire in his grate, turkey, roast beef, plum pudding, and mince pies on his table, and his family gorging themselves on the solid eatables, a frost at Christmas is very pleasant.

Poor people cowering in their rags before the door of a union, cold, hungry, and forlorn, or munching their dry bread in some cheerless garret, may not perhaps so fully appreciate its advantages; but then we all know that poor people never are contented, and seldom understand the fitness of things.

Here in Paris, the numbed soldiers out in the open fields, and the women and children, who have no fires and hardly any food, bitterly complain of the "seasonable" weather.

With plenty of money, with warm clothes, and a good house, a hard frost has its charms, without them it is not quite so agreeable.