with extra care that night; so refined and
delicate were our perceptions after drinking
tea with " my lady."

SLEDGING.

THE great winter feature of Munich is
sledging. One morning, just as I entered
the English Garden, and when I was
admiring the heavy masses of snow which lay
in fantastic forms upon the dark branches
of a group of pine-trees, and was delighting
in the purity and silence and beauty of the
whole scene, a sharp, clear sound of bells rang
through the frosty air; and skimming along
the white, smooth road, which wound among
the trees, on came a bright green and golden
sledge drawn by a brisk black horse, brilliant
with scarlet trappings, and musical with little
bells! It was a peasant's sledge; and wrapt
up in his cloak, and with fur cap and gloves,
and many a warm wrapping besides, sate a
burly peasant within it. The whole thing
was so pretty, and fantastic, and gay, that a
sudden thrill ran through me, and I was a
perfect child in my joy over the pea-green
sledge.

There were sledges everywhere, I found, in
the course of the day. Sledges were seen
standing before doors, without horses, as
though people were bringing them forth from
their summer retreats, and were now inspecting
their state and condition. There were
sledges being drawn along to blacksmiths and
coach-builders, to be put into repair. In a
day or two, gentlemen's carriages began to go
upon sledges instead of wheels; ditto drosches,
ditto fiacres, ditto peasants' carts, ditto
laundresses' carts, ditto brewers' carts. Little lads,
of course, went upon sledges, instead of upon
their legs; water-tubs and buckets, and milk-
jars, or, rather, the queer wooden pails hooped
with brass, in which they here carry their
milk—all travel on sledges. One now begins
to consider things and vehicles which move
upon legs or wheels as very much out of
fashion.

Together with the drosches and fiacres now
put upon sledges, you see upon the stands
sledges proper—two and one-horse sledges,
green, blue, and yellow, grand, elegant, and
shabby; and sledges of this description you
see driving about in all directions, with their
heavily-cloaked and furred drivers generally
standing up behind, to drive à la Hansom cab,
and cracking their long-lashed whips till the
streets resound again. You see a couple of
students in one sledge, a whole family, father,
mother, and a crowd of children, in a family
sledge; you see a lady and gentleman alone;
you see, perhaps, as I did last night, two fat
citizenesses, one driving, with a couple of
round-faced rosy children peeping out at their
knees, and apparently close under the horses'
heels; you see a couple of Munich " gents"
—for there are such animals here—with
big-buttoned coats, jaunty hats, and cigars
in their mouths, driving a lean, shambling
horse at a furious rate, whilst they themselves
seem ready to be spilt from their slight sledge
every moment. You see numbers of well-to-
do, big-boned peasants, rapidly skimming
along in their sledges, which all bear a striking
resemblance to each other, being green, often
of wicker-work painted, and most quaintly
adorned with gilt tracery work, which looks
as if cut in iron, gilded.

I have varied my walk to the studio these
several last mornings, by going down through
the hof-garden, and along a queer old street,
which leads into the St. Anna Vorstadt, in
order to see as much of life as possible. I
have seen, besides all these varieties of the
sledge genus, various little bits of winter life,
which amused me. I have seen soldiers
emptying from long, heavy carts, loads of
snow, into the various branches of the Iser,
which flow through the town; and have met
processions of laundresses, which have a
vastly odd appearance. In the early morning
they were entering the city with clothes-
baskets and bundles, piled up ever so high
on wooden sledges, which they both drew
and pushed along; the sledges, not few in
number, and the procession, rendered yet
more fantastic from gay-coloured dresses
and white petticoats, which were borne aloft,
like pennons, upon long poles! These
laundress-matrons and maids looked very
attractive, I can assure you, all bright and fresh as
they were in the clear winter's morning;
their comely faces glowing with exercise and
the sharp air. Just picture to yourselves this
train winding along through the queer old
street, white and crisp with its snow, and tell
me whether, together with a pea-green sledge
rushing along here and there, and every now
and then a group of peasants cutting wood
before the houses, the scene was not quaint
and pleasantly foreign?

These groups of wood-cutters form quite
a characteristic feature in the winter picture
of a Munich street. The man—for the groups
usually consists of one man and two women—
the man in a chocolate-coloured or pale pink
cotton jacket, black velvet breeches, and black
top-boots, chopping away at a heavy block,
which he has set on the causeway; the women
in pink or blue cotton boddices, with huge
wadded gigot sleeves, and scarlet or green, or
both colours mixed, woollen petticoats, and
with black or white handkerchiefs tied over
their heads; one sawing piles of wood in a
skeleton-like sawing machine; the other carrying
away, in a wooden basket, on her back,
the cut and sawn pieces of wood, through
the heavy arched door, or rather gateway, of
the house.

But to return to the sledging, and to our
sledging in particular. On Tuesday afternoon
the sun shone out gloriously, and cast
long gleams on the studio floor, through the
high windows. My eyes glanced up, and
encountered, smiling through leafless branches,