And while he was doing that the swan took the little rabbit to the other side of the pond and he hopped away so fast that he didn't tell me what he was going to do in to-morrow's story.
STORY XV.
BILLY BUNNY AND THE PEACOCK.
Well, if it hadn't been for Robbie Redbreast who saw little Billy Bunny hopping away from the lily pond, as I told you in the last story, I never would have found out what he did after that, and so there would have been no story to-night. So the next time you see Robbie Redbreast, please thank him.
And now this is what he told me. After the little rabbit had hopped along for maybe a mile or three, he came to a high stone wall. "I wonder what's on the other side?" he said to himself, and then a beautiful peacock looked over and said: "I'll tell you, little rabbit.
"It's a beautiful garden where a fountain plays all day and the breezes sing all night and the flowers whisper and bow their heads."
"How can I get in?" asked the little bunny, "for I love flowers and I never heard a fountain play. What does it play?"
"Oh, all sorts of waterfall music," said the peacock, and he spread his beautiful tail out like a fan and brushed a little green fly off his nose. "It plays trills and rills and cascades and ripples and dipples."
And this made the little rabbit so curious that he hunted all around to find a gate in the high stone wall. And pretty soon, not so very long, he came to one, with big iron rods and curiously carved images of lions and dragons and animals with wings.
So he squeezed through and hopped up to the beautiful fountain where lots of little gold and silver fish swam around and around and the water fell in diamonds and rubies and emeralds, but he didn't know that it was Mr. Happy Sun who colored the water drops to make them look like precious stones.