CHAPTER I. SPRING.



It was a sweet carol, which the Rhodian children sang of old in
Spring, bearing in their hands, from door to door, a swallow, as
herald of the season;

"The Swallow is come!

The Swallow is come!

O fair are the seasons, and light

Are the days that she brings,

With her dusky wings,

And her bosom snowy white."

A pretty carol, too, is that, which the Hungarian boys, on the
islands of the Danube, sing to the returning stork in Spring;

"Stork! Stork! poor Stork!

Why is thy foot so bloody?