No sooner, however, had his little dusky brown feet touched the surface of the snow, than he found he was gradually sinking down, down into a soft, but very cold white bed. With a shrill cry of alarm he flew up again, and did not stop until he alighted on the bough of the lime-tree where we were first introduced to him. What was it? What wonderful and 5 terrible new thing was this? and where was he to go for his breakfast?
He was sitting in a very melancholy frame of mind, stretching out first one foot and then the other, when his attention was arrested by a flood of joyous song poured forth from above, and looking up, he saw a bright-breasted Robin on the bough immediately over his head.
The little bird in his scarlet and brown plumage looked more richly coloured and even more beautiful than usual, as, supported by his slender legs, with his head thrown back and his feathers puffed out, he poured forth his light-hearted carol to the leafless woods.
“How can you sing on this miserable morning?” said the Blackbird, gloomily, and indeed half contemptuously.
“Miserable morning!” replied the Robin in a tone of surprise; “why I don’t think it’s at all a miserable morning,––just look at the beautiful snow.”
“Oh, that’s what you call that white stuff down there, is it?” said the Blackbird, disdainfully gazing at the white world beneath him.
“Yes, to be sure,” said the Robin; “have you never seen snow before?”
“No,” replied the Blackbird, “I’ve not, and I shan’t break my heart if I never see it again. All last night it was dropping on my back till I was wet through and through; and just now, when I flew down to look about for my breakfast, why it all gave way under my feet, and I might have been smothered.”
“Ah,” said the Robin, shaking his head, “you won’t mind it when you get more used to it. You see you’re a young bird; this is only your first winter. Now I saw it all last winter. I’m nearly two years old.”