Grateful Peter's new year's gift

How it begins

ON the last evening of the year, the snow was falling heavily, and the same shrill wind that howled and whistled through the keyholes and roared in the chimneys was whirling the white flakes round the heads of the few people to be found in the streets. What a night it was! That piercing wind laid hold of all the passengers. Some it drove onwards, nearly lifting them off their feet; others it forced backwards, making them fight for every inch of the way through the snow which it flung in their faces. Umbrellas were of no use that night. Those who tried to use the frail shelters of silk or alpaca saw them turned into playthings by that unruly pitiless wind.