X. 

 THE FROZEN POND. 



THE pond on the moor is frozen over. What 

 an epoch in the history of all its inhabitants ! 

 For they are not mostly long-lived creatures, 

 these pond-dwellers ; a summer forms an 

 appreciable part of their short existence. 

 Theirs is but a precarious life at the best 

 of times ; they have always to steer close 

 between the Scylla of drought and the 

 Charybdis of freezing. Half their days are 

 spent in enforced seclusion. In the summer 

 the pond, which is their universe, is apt to 

 dry up and fail them ; in winter it stands its 

 even chance of freezing solid and entombing 

 them. To meet these two extreme con- 

 tingencies, all the world of the pond has had 



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