his depriving himself of so much of it—and beneath its friendly shelter gently drew her slender, shrinking form close to himself, so as to impart some of his own vital warmth to her. She could feel the quickened beating of his heart as he held her respectfully, yet firmly and tenderly, embraced, and he was soon rewarded for his loving care by seeing the colour return to her pale lips, the happy light to her sweet eyes, and even a faint flush appear on her delicate cheeks. While they were eating—or rather making believe to eat their make-believe breakfast—a singular noise was heard near by, to which at first they paid no particular attention, thinking it was the wind whistling through the matted branches of the thicket, if they thought of it at all; but presently it grew louder, and they could not imagine what it proceeded from. It was a sort of hissing sound, at once shrill and hoarse, quite impossible to describe accurately. As it grew louder and louder, and seemed to be approaching them, the women manifested some alarm. “Oh!” shrieked Serafina “I hope it’s not a snake; I shall die if it is; I am so terrified by the horrid, crawling creatures.” “But it can’t possibly be a snake,” said Leander, reassuringly; “in such cold weather as this the snakes are all torpid and lying in their holes underground, stiffer than so many sticks.” “Leander is right,” added the pedant, “this cannot be a snake; and besides, snakes never make such a sound as that at any time. It must proceed from some wild creature of the wood that our invasion has disturbed; perhaps we may be lucky enough to capture it and find it edible; that would be a piece of good fortune, indeed, quite like a fairy-tale.” Meantime Scapin was listening attentively to the strange, incomprehensible sound, and watching keenly that part of the thicket from which it seemed to come. Presently a movement of the underbrush became noticeable, and just as he motioned to the company to keep perfectly quiet a magnificent big gander emerged from the bushes, stretching out his long neck, hissing with all his might, and waddling along with a sort of stupid majesty that was most diverting—closely followed by two geese, his good, simple-minded, confiding wives, in humble attendance upon their infuriated lord and master.