"Maitre Corbeau, sur un arbre perche." La Fontaine. It was so cold. Ah, so very cold So thought the old raven as he hobbled up and down the terrace walk at the back of the house-the walk that was so pleasant in summer, with its pretty view of the lower garden, gay with the bright, stiffly-arranged flowerbeds, so pleasantly warm and yet shady with the old trees overhead, where the raven's second cousins, the rooks, managed their affairs, not without a good deal of chatter about it, it must be confessed."