32 A WALK IN THE SNOW. 



within sight of the desired oak tree. A few minutes more 

 brought her under its boughs, and into the very midst of the 

 family she had come to visit. Like her, they had all been 

 brought out by the sunshine, and like her had all been sleeping 

 through the frost, a habit in which they exactly resembled our 

 busy friend and her fellows ; but here all likeness ended, the 

 people of the oak being as lazy a crew as ever slept or ate 

 away existence. Idlers as they were, yet after their late long 

 fast you may be sure they were all busy enough in breaking 

 it; and as their famishing visitor drew near, her hungry eyes 

 were not slow in discerning that young and old, big and little, 

 were hard at work, not with their knives and forks, but with 

 their pipes, which served them instead of either. Not one of 

 the party took the slightest notice of the pitiful presence of our 

 poor dripping wearied traveller, as she stood at an humble 

 distance, and looked round timidly before she ventured, except 

 by looks, to make known her wants. She first tried to recognize 

 among the younger of the party some who might have been her 

 foster-children ; but they were all grown out of knowledge, 

 at all events seemed to have no knowledge of her. From the 

 juveniles she then turned to one' who, judging by appearance, 

 might have been " le Pere de la Famille ; " brown-coated, 

 round, sleek, and shining, he had been busiest of the busy with 

 his pipe, which, by the way, was much longer and, as his 

 petitioner soon found, much more pliant than himself. Fairly 

 tired out with its use, he had laid this curious instrument of 

 repletion, not aside, for he was too much attached to it, but out 

 of the way, and now depending from his chin and bent over 

 his portly stomach, it passed between his legs, and turned up 

 like a tail behind. Well, this was the one-tailed Bashaw whom 

 our hungry suppliant at length ventured to accost, though why 

 in preference to others we cannot say, unless it might have 

 been from the unoccupied consequence of his air. She related 

 her pressing need ; but twice told, or told a hundred times, it 

 fell, as is usual with tales of like burthen, upon a heedless 



