LED IN LAST YEAR.]

[Illustration: ONCE MORE HE FELT THE MAGIC PULSE OF LIFE WITHIN HIM.]

He had swung himself to the top of a broken twig, and, as he looked down,
perceived her climbing stiffly up towards him. Mother had aged since the
autumn, but, when she drew closer, he knew her well enough; it was the
same soft fur that he had nestled in last year.

Together they went out into the night. Once more he felt the magic pulse
of life within him, and ran to the top of the hedge and down again twenty
times for the mere joy of running. Head upwards he flew, head downwards,
backwards, forwards, sideways. Sometimes he paused for a moment, lightly
balanced on a branch end, then swung himself to the next friendly
projection. Sometimes there was no pause. In one easy unbroken course he
travelled to the end, cleared the intervening gap, and landed on the
neighbouring branch below. He never missed, he never stumbled; for he
was tumbler and wire-walker and saltimbanque in one.

[Illustration: HE WAITED FOR HER AS LONG AS HE DARED.]

And mother? Mother had lost some of her spring, but she had developed
judiciousness, and a fine eye for country. It was this latter which, to
her son's amazement, usually kept her two bushes ahead. It was this which
made him miss her as the day broke.

He had been to the very topmost pinnacle of a thorn-bush; halfway down
he had leapt four feet on to a neighbouring hazel; he had looked back in
self-congratulation at the abyss, and, when he had turned again, she had
disappeared.

He waited for her as long as he dared, and then crept back subdued and
lonely to his nest. Next evening perhaps he would see her again. But the
next evening passed, and the next, and the next, and he never saw her
again until the end.

Some other time I will tell you how he passed that summer, how he
fought for and won a wife, how they built a nest together and made a store
together, of the four little dormice, and of the sad fate that befel two
of them. Here I can only tell the last scene.

It was late autumn. His wife had already felt the coming of winter, and
retired to her six months' sleep. He himself had sealed her in.

He had taught the two small dormice how to build their nests (honeysuckle
fibre and dead leaf), and pointed out the necessity of getting into them
before Christmas. He had rebuilt his own nest in the same old hollow, for
he knew that he could not hold out much longer.

[Illustration: MOTHER WA