o have
eaten. He passed from the lanes into a field, where the mushrooms grew
so thickly, that it was difficult to avoid treading on them as he
walked. What greatly added to the delights of the expedition was the
fact that all the time the Blackbird hopped by his side. He, too, seemed
to have grown larger, and he was wonderfully tame, and allowed Willie to
stroke his glossy head and back. Arrived at the end of the meadow,
however, Willie seemed somehow to pass into another lane, and there on
the hedgerows instead of blackberries hung curious-looking bottles, and
they were all labelled "Mr. Phil Viall, Chemist and Druggist."

Alas! poor Willie, he knew those bottles far too well. Some of them were
yellow and others were white, while a few were dreadfully black.
"Nanny," grown very tall indeed, marched before him down the lane,
pointing sternly to each bottle as she passed.

At this moment Willie awoke, and was very glad to find that after all it
was only a dream, that the bright morning sun was streaming through the
white dimity curtains, and that he did not feel one bit the worse for
yesterday's expedition.

A few days passed away, and the Blackbird found that all that the
Rook had told him was strictly true, for before long an evening
arrived when a great many swallows began to congregate; then after a
good deal of twittering and excitement they took wing, and flew steadily
away towards the setting sun. The next morning the Blackbird sadly
missed the twitter of his small friends. No little glossy dark heads
were to be seen peeping out of the clay-built nests under the eaves,
and no white-breasted flyers skimmed the lawn. Yes, the swallows were
indeed gone, and the Blackbird sadly realised the fact that the
summer and its singers were gone too, left far behind in the months of
long ago.

That evening, after watching the flight of the swallows, the Blackbird
flew from the fir to his favourite branch on the lime, where we were
first introduced to him. He felt rather sad, there was so much that was
bright and joyous and sunny to look back upon in the past spring and
summer; there was not a little that was dark and cold and dreary to look
forward to in the approaching winter. As he was meditating on the past,
and thinking of the future, a bright, a familiar note greeted him from a
branch close by,--in another moment the Robin had hopped to his side.

"My dear little friend," cried the Blackbird, "I haven't seen you for