S CLIMBING PAINFULLY UP TO HIM.]

With every light breeze that crept down the hedgerow now came the rustle
of the falling leaf. Each night he had seemed less inclined to wake, and
this night he seemed less inclined than ever.

The sun had scarcely set before he felt chilled and uncomfortable. To
warm himself he did three minutes' gymnastics. The end of them found him
perched on the same old broken twig, and, when he looked down, even as
before, mother was climbing painfully up to him.

It needed but a glance to see that she would not outlive the winter. Had
she made a nest? No, she had not troubled. The hole she was in last year
would do. Perhaps she would take his nest, he could easily build another.
Most certainly she would not. He could help her to put some leaves into
hers to-morrow. But that night came the first frost.

[Illustration: BUT THAT NIGHT CAME THE FIRST FROST.]

THE PURPLE EMPEROR

Down by the brookside the Sallow drooped her sunburnt leaves despondently.
Things were at their dullest.

Three months ago she had been a tree of importance. Her dark, slender
branches had formed a fashionable _rendez-vous_. Each evening she had seen
her golden catkins studded with opals--the eyes of soft, furry, blundering
moths. Each day the bees had thronged to pay court to her.

Then came Palm Sunday. Her catkins were stripped from her, worn for a few
hours in yokels' hats, and flung aside. The moths came no more; the bees
forsook her for the bluebells.

But the kingfishers cared nothing for her appearance. They nested, as
usual, deep in the bank below, in a hollow formed by her roots.

The kingfishers were always in a hurry, and their colours were fussy and
discordant. They flashed up and down the brook like a pair of demented
fireworks. The whole bank reeked with the discarded meals of their
progeny.

By the time the nestlings were fledged, the sallow wore its summer mantle,
a down-lined cloak of green.

The interesting event had been a diversion. Now there seemed nothing to
look forward to.

On the one side lay the meadow-land, stretching in unbroken monotony to
the sky-line; on the other, the brook; beyond its wooded bank, more
meadow-land.

The brook was not what it had been. Its waters were being drawn away to
thirsty London, and herein lay the sallow's chief vexation.

This year her upper boughs had never flowered. Summer arrived, and she had
hoped against hope. They had never even put fort