at he
is speaking of something unpleasant. That thing that glares so, and then
disappears, the sun, as he calls it, is not my friend. I know that by
instinct.'

'Bow-wow!' barked the yard-dog, and walked three times round himself,
and then crept into his kennel to sleep. The weather really did change.
Towards morning a dense damp fog lay over the whole neighbourhood; later
on came an icy wind, which sent the frost packing. But when the sun
rose, it was a glorious sight. The trees and shrubs were covered with
rime, and looked like a wood of coral, and every branch was thick with
long white blossoms. The most delicate twigs, which are lost among the
foliage in summer-time, came now into prominence, and it was like a
spider's web of glistening white. The lady-birches waved in the wind;
and when the sun shone, everything glittered and sparkled as if it were
sprinkled with diamond dust, and great diamonds were lying on the snowy
carpet.

'Isn't it wonderful?' exclaimed a girl who was walking with a young
man in the garden. They stopped near the Snow-man, and looked at the
glistening trees. 'Summer cannot show a more beautiful sight,' she said,
with her eyes shining.

'And one can't get a fellow like this in summer either,' said the young
man, pointing to the Snow-man. 'He's a beauty!'

The girl laughed, and nodded to the Snow-man, and then they both danced
away over the snow.

'Who were those two?' asked the Snow-man of the yard-dog. 'You have been
in this yard longer than I have. Do you know who they are?'

'Do I know them indeed?' answered the yard-dog. 'She has often stroked
me, and he has given me bones. I don't bite either of them!'

'But what are they?' asked the Snow-man.

'Lovers!' replied the yard-dog. 'They will go into one kennel and gnaw
the same bone!'

'Are they the same kind of beings that we are?' asked the Snow-man.

'They are our masters,' answered the yard-dog. 'Really people who have
only been in the world one day know very little.' That's the conclusion
I have come to. Now I have age and wisdom; I know everyone in the house,
and I can remember a time when I was not lying here in a cold kennel.
Bow-wow!'

'The cold is splendid,' said the Snow-man. 'Tell me some more. But don't
rattle your chain so, it makes me crack!'

'Bow-wow!' barked the yard-dog. 'They used to say I was a pretty little
fellow; then I lay in a velvet-covered chair in my master's house. My
mistress used to nurse me, and