all sides but leafless branches standing
out sharply against the cold, grey sky. The ground was frozen, and
entirely covered with snow, for there had been a heavy fall during the
night. The way-marks of field and road were obliterated, all was one
sheet of dazzling whiteness. Here and there a little mound marked the
spot where a flower-bed lay buried, and there was one narrow path where
the snow was thickly piled on either side, for it had been partially
swept from the centre, which showed traces of the bright brown gravel
below.

The Blackbird was contemplating this landscape in a discontented and
unhappy frame of mind. He was, as we have just said, a remarkably fine
young bird. His plumage was of a glossy blackness, with which not even a
raven's could vie; his bright eyes looked even brighter as they gleamed
from the deep yellow rims which surrounded them, and his bill resembled
the polished shaft of an early crocus.

At the time at which my story begins, this Blackbird was about eight
months old, and usually he was not a little vain of his appearance. On
this particular morning, however, he did not feel at all so proud of
himself, or especially pleased with any one or anything. He had passed
the long night in a wood hard by, and had been benumbed with cold.

He had tucked his head first under one wing, and then under the other,
but it had been of no use, the cutting wind had penetrated even his
thick warm feathers, and had ruffled them in a way which had sorely
discomposed him, in body as well as in mind.

Then again, all through the night he had been exceedingly put out by
little cold wet dabs which kept continually falling on his back. The
Blackbird had changed his position--he had done it several times: he had
moved from a birch to an elm, and then to a beech-tree. But it was of no
avail, the little cold droppings seemed to pursue him wherever he went,
and it was not till quite late in the night that he found real shelter,
and got a little rest in a thick mantle of ivy which completely covered
a wall near the stables.

What were these cold droppings? He could not imagine. He knew well
enough they were not rain; rain always made a sharp pelting noise as it
struck against the trees. But there had been no such sound, for, with
the exception of the occasional sighing of the wind, the night had been
a singularly noiseless one. What then could this cold, soft moisture
be?

The Blackbird could not at all understa