THE SPIDER’S STRONGHOLD. 
lias bird was very quick. With a quite 
unexpected and almost lightning dart 
she was in among the branches of the willow, 
and had snapped at the little, dark spider 
crawling, crawling, crawling on the end of 
a slender twig. But the little, dark spider 
wasn’t going to feed tom-tits. 
No; he let go, and fell through the sunshine 
with the shower of falling leaves displaced by 
the passage of the bird, and—oh, spider !—the 
glassy, dark, sinister surface of the pond below 
acknowledged receipt of the whole lot with a 
display of dappled tiny ripples. It was almost 
as if the pond had smiled at the thought of a 
spider who had been so foolish as to drop into 
water. But it must have been the spider who 
smiled really, because when the bird had 
flirted round and fluttered down to the sur- 
face to pick up at her leisure the spider that 
had dodged her at first, she—well, she looked 
foolish. 
There, indeed, were the leaves; there were 
the tiny ripples broadening their smile; and 
there was, squirming about, the very young 
and innocent caterpillar whom the spider was 
interviewing on his own account when the 
