At last a night arrived when it was very cold indeed. Through the bare boughs, and on to the hedgerows and ivy, stole down the pure, soft snow. The Blackbird put his head out of the ivy-bush to see what sort of night it might be, and lo! under the pale light of the moon, all the landscape lay white and dazzling before him.
One little flake dropt upon his head––one cold, soft 87 flake; but as he drew back into the shelter of the ivy, to return once more to rest, it was with very different thoughts and feelings than those gloomy ones which had troubled him the year before. He now knew what the beautiful snow meant. It was the beginning of a hard winter, it was the herald of cold, dark days. But he had also been taught a lesson of faith; he knew of the winter berries which would be provided for him by One who remembered even the despised Sparrows; he knew of a certain bay window where two eager little faces would be watching for him, through all the cold, dark days; and as he closed his eyes, on this the first night of winter, he remembered that little Willie and Alice, and he himself, and all created things, were under the protection of Him Who “casteth forth His ice like morsels,” but Who, in His own good time, would again bring about the “time of the singing of birds,” when, once more, as of old, “the voice of the turtle” would be “heard in the land.”
THE END.
london:
R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor,
bread street hill, e.c.
Transcriber’s Notes
Typographical problems have been changed and are listed below.