"
"Nurse, I should like to take a drive through the forest in winter.
It is so nice to hear the sleigh-bells. We used sometimes to go out
in the snow in Scotland, but we were in the carriage, and had no bells."
"No, Lady Mary; the snow seldom lies long enough in the old country
to make it worth while to have sleighs there; but in Russia and Sweden,
and other cold Northern countries, they use sleighs with bells."
Lady Mary ran to the little bookcase where she had a collection of
children's books, and very soon found a picture of Laplanders and Russians
wrapped in furs.
"How long will the winter last, nurse?" said the child, after she had
tired herself with looking at the prints, "a long, long time--a great
many weeks?--a great many months?"
"Yes, my lady; five or six months."
"Oh, that is nice--nearly half a year of white snow, and sleigh-drives
every day, and bells ringing all the time! I tried to make out a tune,
but they only seemed to say, 'Up-hill, up-hill! down-hill, down-hill!'
all the way. Nurse, please tell me what are sleigh-robes made of?"
"Some sleigh-robes, Lady Mary, are made of bear-skins, lined with red
or blue flannel; some are of wolf-skins, lined with bright scarlet
cloth; and some of racoon, the commonest are buffalo-skins; I have
seen some of deer-skins, but these last are not so good, as the hair
comes off, and they are not so warm as the skins of the furred or
woolly-coated animals"
"I sometimes see long tails hanging down over the backs of the sleigh and
cutters--they look very pretty, like the end of mamma's boa.
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