A STOKM. 81 



served, that his suppliant was on her part no less thick-headed, 

 having thought, poor silly creature ! to strengthen her claim by 

 a delicate allusion to former kindnesses, received at her hands 

 by certain of his kindred. For this, her folly, she was only 

 treated as she deserved perhaps she thought so too, for without 

 applying to any one else of all her " many friends," whose 

 looks were not encouraging, she turned away, hungrier and 

 sadder than ever, meaning to try and crawl back again to her 

 unprovisioned home, that she might die at least among her own 

 people. But alas ! she soon found that this backward step, 

 hard enough to contemplate, was one yet harder to execute. 

 While her "friends" had been busy feasting with their hollow 

 pipes, and she with her hollow eyes, the sun had been busy 

 with the snow, of which, by this time, he had made what to 

 her was an impassable lake between herself and home. How 

 wistfully did she try, but in vain to look across it from that 

 barbarous and inhospitable shore where she must now lie down 

 and perish with hunger. But no ; a death more speedy soon 

 threatened to swallow up the atom that now remained of our 

 poor little villager's wasted body. The great sun having 

 stooped from his meridian height to do her all the harm he 

 could, had now shrunk behind a dark cloudy screen, whence 

 presently (and as if he was still at the bottom of the mischief) 

 there came pouring down a tremendous torrent. The in- 

 tercepting lake soon spread into a sea ; the sea soon swelled 

 into an ocean ; and the wind, no longer a soft south-wester, 



