Feltie told them his story too; and then the seven set out on their journey; and in the afternoon the sun shone warmly out of the rainy clouds, the lark rose in the air and sang, the robins sat on moist twigs and cheered them with a strain as they passed; the streams rose, full of melting snow, and rushed over their banks into the meadows, moistening them and making them soft and pleasant to the searching bills of hungry birds: the air was soft, wet, and delicious, and in the fields they heard the bleating of the young lambs, and the calls of neighbouring parties of fieldfares and redwings. At last when they neared the familiar spot which Feltie had left but a few days before, he bade farewell to his fellow-travellers and turned with a beating heart in the direction of the well-known elm-trees, standing in the flat meadows where the stream wound here and there under its brambly archway. His loud “chak-chak” was answered: there were some old friends there still. There was Jill: and there too was Jack: they had saved their lives, then, by staying in the friendly park among the thorn-trees. But that terrible storm had done its work upon the little company: more than half were still missing, and Feltie himself was almost the last straggler to arrive. Many an adventure had to be narrated, and many a story of struggle for life and death; but there was none so thrilling as the winter’s tale that Feltie had to tell, and no loss so sadly to be bewailed as the death of the brilliant Cocktail in the gorse on the dreary frozen down. OUT OF TUNE. “Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues.” In a certain manufacturing town, of no great size, there lived a musician. For the most part he gained his living by playing at concerts and giving lessons; but he was young, ardent, and clever, and he had always nursed a hope that he might one day be a great composer. He felt a soul of music within him, that wanted to come out and express itself. But, though he had had a complete training in composition, and had written much music and published a little, no one took any notice of what he composed; it was too good to sell well (so he used to say, and perhaps it was true), and he had never had a chance of having any of his larger works performed in public. And he began to get rather irritable and impatient, so that his wife was sometimes at her wits’ end to know how to cheer him up and set him to work once more with a good heart.