“Three little birds set off on a journey, three bold companions; the Wren, the Red-Breast, and their friend the Lark; Wren, brisk as quicksilver and proud as Artaban, soon spied a bright spark floating in the air. He snapped at it, crying, ‘I have it! I, I, I!’ The others joined in the same cry, but as Wren flew down he screamed, ‘Fire! I am burning!’ He rolled the hot morsel from one corner of his beak to the other, and at last his tongue was peeling, and he could bear no more, so he spit it out and hid it under his little wings. Did you ever notice the red spots, and his frizzled feathers?--Red-Breast rushed to help him. He seized the spark of fire and put it carefully on his soft waistcoat, but the fine waistcoat got red and redder and poor Red-Breast screamed, ‘Enough--my clothes are burning.’ Then came the Lark, the brave little friend, catching the spark which was flying off to Heaven, and quick, prompt, and swift as an arrow she fell to the earth; then with her little beak she buried the bright spark of sunshine in the frozen ground, and, oh, how glad it was to feel it!” My story came to an end, and it was Glodie’s turn to tell one; then when we got outside the town, I took her on my back as we climbed the hill. The sky is gray and the snow creaks under our wooden shoes; the delicate little skeletons of the trees and bushes are all wadded with white, and the smoke mounts up straight from the cottage chimneys slow and blue. There is no sound but the chirp of my little frog,--but here we are at the top. Below at our feet lies my town, wrapped about by the lazy Yonne and the trifling Beuvron, like silver ribbons, covered with snow, frozen, chilled and shivering, yet somehow it warms my heart only to look at the place.