seemed always summer and always sunshine, and where now in the
forenoon all the colors were marshaling in the pageantry of the
Arts, as he had seen them do hundreds of times from his lone
corner. All the misery of the past looked happiness now.

"If I were only dead, like Flakewhite," he thought; but the stones
only bruised, they did not kill him; and the iron band only hurt,
it did not stifle him. For whatever suffers very much has always
so much strength to continue to exist. And almost his loyal heart
blasphemed and cursed the master who had brought him to such a
fate as this.

The day grew apace, and noon went by, and with it the rain passed.
The sun shone out once more, and Lampblack, even imprisoned and
wretched as he was, could not but see how beautiful the wet leaves
looked, and the gossamers all hung with raindrops, and the blue
sky that shone through the boughs; for he had not lived with a
great artist all his days to be blind, even in pain, to the
loveliness of nature. The sun came out, and with it some little
brown birds tripped out too--very simple and plain in their
costumes and ways, but which Lampblack knew were the loves of the
poets, for he had heard the master call them so many times in
summer nights. The little brown birds came tripping and pecking
about on the grass underneath his tree-trunk, and then flew on the
top of the wall, which was covered with Banksia and many other
creepers. The brown birds sang a little song, for though they sing
most in the moonlight, they do sing by day too, and sometimes all
day long. And what they sung was this:--

"Oh, how happy we are, how happy! No nets dare now be spread for