86 Darknefs and Light.

weather was getting quite hot,” and “it mu/? be
fummer, for they heard the fparrows chirping
every morning the firft thing,” and they “‘ thought
they had feen a fwallow,” and ‘‘ the windows got
fo warm with the funfhine, Nurfe declared they
were enough to burn one’s fingers :” and fo the
poor little things teazed themfelves and everybody
elfe, every year, in their hurry to get back to their
weftern home. But I dare fay you have heard
the old proverb, ‘* One fwallow does not make
a fummer ;” and fo it was proved very often to our
friends. For the Spring feafon is fo changeable,
there are often fome foft mild days, and then a
cruel froft comes again, and perhaps fnow as well ;
and people who have boafted about fine weather
and put off their winter clothes, look very foolith.
Still Time pafles on; and when May was half
over, the Town Houfe ufed to echo with fhouts of
noify delight, and boxes were banged down in the
paflages, and there was a great calling out for
cords, and much fcolding about broken keys and
padlocks, and the poor Carpenter who came to
mend the trunks and find new keys to old locks,
was at his wits’ end and his patience’ end too.
But at laft the time came when all this buftle
was fucceeded by filence in the Town Houfe, for
carriages had rolled away with the happy party,
and nobody was left behind but two or three wo-
men fervants to clean out the deferted rooms.
And now then, my little readers, who are, I
hope, wondering what is coming next, you muft