The Little Emperor climbed out of his bed. The room was full of the still white light that comes from snow, and looking out of the window he saw that the plum trees and the cherry trees looked as if they had blossomed in the night, the snow lay so white and light on every twig. Softly the snow fell, deep, deep it lay, and the people who passed by his windows went as silently as though they were shod in white velvet. The Little Emperor thought of his dream, and decided that his little bird might suffer and die if he let it go free before winter was over. But he explained to the bird, and tried to make it happier. “When summer comes, you shall fly away into the sky,” he told it. He brought it fruit and green leaves to peck at, talking to it gently. And the little bird seemed to understand. The dull eyes grew brighter; and though it never sang it sometimes chirped as if it were trying to say: “Thank you.” On the first night of summer when the moon lay like a great round pearl in the deep blue sea of the sky, the Little Emperor slept, and dreamed again that the cage door opened for him and let him go free. But oh, what happiness now, happiness almost too great for a little boy to bear. Peonies were in bloom, each petal like a big seashell, and blue butterflies floated over them in the warm sunshine. Half hidden in the grass the Little Emperor found a great purple fruit—a mulberry. How good it was! The dewy spider webs glistened like the great tinsel Bridge to Heaven they built for him on every birthday. How happy he was! How happy! Free and safe! With the sun to warm him and the breeze to cool him; with food tumbling down from Heaven or the mulberry trees, he wasn’t sure which, with a crystal clear dewdrop to drink on every blade of grass. How happy he was! The lake was full of great rustling leaves and big pink lotus flowers. Venturing out on one of the leaves, he paddled his feet over its edge in the gently lapping water. Then, climbing into one of the pink blossoms, he lay, so happy, so happy, looking up at the blue-green dragon flies darting overhead, and rocking gently in his rosy boat. No, it was not the lotus flower that rocked him on the water. It was Princess Autumn Cloud who was gently shaking him, and saying: “Wake up, if you please, dear Little Old Ancestor!” And hard as it is to believe, she was really smiling. The Little Emperor had been so good lately, and then it was such a beautiful day! He could not wait until after breakfast to let his little brown bird go free. As soon as he was dressed he ran as fast as he could to the room where the bird cage hung. Pat-a-pat-pat went his little feet in their blue satin shoes, and thud, thud! puff, puff! his fat old Gentlemen-In-Waiting lumbered along behind him.