le kids saw it they came up running.

"The wolf is dead, the wolf is dead!" they cried, and taking hands, they
danced with their mother all about the place.

THE TALE OF THE SNOW AND THE STEEPLE

I set off from Rome on a journey to Russia, in the midst of winter, from a
just notion that frost and snow must of course mend the roads, which every
traveler had described as uncommonly bad through the northern parts of
Germany, Poland, Courland, and Livonia. I went on horseback as the most
convenient manner of traveling. I was but lightly clothed, and of this I
felt the inconvenience the more I advanced northeast. What must not a poor
old man have suffered in that severe weather and climate, whom I saw on a
bleak common in Poland lying on the road helpless, shivering, and hardly
having the wherewithal to cover his nakedness? I pitied the poor soul:
though I felt the severity of the air myself, I threw my mantle over him,
and immediately I heard a voice from the heavens blessing me for that
piece of charity, saying, "You will be rewarded, my son, for this in
time."

[Illustration: "I took one of my pistols, shot the bridle in two."]

I went on: night and darkness overtook me. No village was to be seen. The
country was covered with snow, and I was unacquainted with the road.

Tired, I alighted, and fastened my horse to something, like a pointed stump
of a tree, which appeared above the snow; for the sake of safety, I placed
my pistols under my arm, and laid down on the snow, where I slept so
soundly that I did not open my eyes till full daylight. It is not easy to
conceive my astonishment to find myself in the midst of a village, lying in
a churchyard; nor was my horse to be seen, but I heard him soon after neigh
somewhere above me. On looking upwards, I beheld him hanging by his bridle
to the weather-cock of the steeple. Matters were now very plain to me; the
village had been covered with snow overnight: a sudden change of weather
had taken place: I had sunk down to the churchyard whilst asleep, gently,
and in the same proportion as the snow had melted away; and what in the
dark I had taken to be a stump of a little tree appearing above the snow,
to which I had tied my horse, proved to be the cross or weather-cock of the
steeple!

With long consideration, I took one of my pistols, shot the bridle in two,
brought down the horse, and proceeded on my journey. [Here the baron seems
to have forgotten his feelings: he