A BRUSH WITH FATE. 
‘pee frost-king had come to the world in a 
night, and the grass on the ‘ rides’ in the 
bristling covert was flashing and dancing as if 
covered with a carpet of a thousand gems. 
But the frost-king had also brought his grim 
prime minister—cruel famine. Many of the 
denizens of the covert, therefore, were return- 
ing to their lairs hungry that morning. 
First and earliest came the badger—and 
that was late for him—a low, gray shadow, 
grumbling to himself because, coaxed from his 
lair by the mild weather of yesterday, he had 
ventured out, and the ground had been almost 
too hard for even his strong claws to dig for 
his favourite roots and bulbs. 
Next came a disconsolate owl, flapping along 
low and silent, hungry because his night’s 
work had produced only three mice and a 
shrew instead of twice as many. 
Last of all came the fox—red, rascally, and 
reckless. Not alone was he, for a fine fat 
rabbit came with him—in his jaws. He only, 
it seemed, knew how to profit by the frost. 
Master Reynard made straight for his ‘earth,’ 
and, arrived thereat, stopped so utterly dead 
