"We know what it is," they said. "It is the beech that is the death of us. He steals the sunshine for his own leaves, and does not allow us a single ray. He is a mean, wicked thing." They stood for some days, grumbling and crying. Then my Lady Spring came for the last time through the wood. She had still the oak trees and some other crusty old fellows to attend to. "Lie down nicely in the earth and go to sleep," she said to the anemones. "It is of no use to kick against the pricks. Next year I will come back and waken you once more to life." And some of the anemones did as she told them. But others still stretched their heads into the air, and grew so ugly and stalky that it was horrid to see them. "Fie for shame!" they cried to the beech leaves. "It is you who are killing us." But the beech shook his long boughs and let his brown husks drop down to the ground. "Wait till the autumn, you little simpletons," he said, laughing. "Then you shall see." The anemones could not understand what he meant. But when they had stretched themselves till they were as tall as they could be, they broke off and withered. * * * * * The summer was over, and the farmer had carried his corn home from the field. The wood was still green, but it was a darker green than before; and in many places red and yellow leaves glowed among the green ones. The sun was tired after his hot work in the summer, and went early to bed. At night Winter was stealing about among the trees to see if his time was not soon coming. When he found a flower, he gallantly kissed it, saying,-- "What! are you here still? I am charmed to meet you. Please stay where you are. I am a good old man, and would not harm a cat." But the flower shuddered at his kiss, and the transparent dewdrop that hung from its petal froze to ice at the instant. Again and again Winter ran through the wood. When he breathed on them, the leaves turned yellow and the earth grew hard. Even the anemones, who lay below in the earth waiting till my Lady Spring should come back as she had promised, they too felt his breath and shuddered down in their roots. "Ugh! how cold it is!" they said to one another. "How shall we stand the winter? We shall die for a certainty before it is over." "Now it's _my_ time," said Winter. "Now I need no longer steal about like a thief in the night. After to-day I shall look everybody in the face, and bite their noses, and make their eyes run with water." At night he let loose the storm. "Let me see you make a clean sweep," he said. And the storm obeyed his command. He went howling through the wood, and shook the branches till they creaked and cracked. Any that were rotten broke off, and those that held on had to turn and bow this way and that. "Away with that finery!" howled the storm as he tore off the leaves. "This is not the time to dress yourself up. The snow will soon be coming on to your branches; that will be quite another story."