540 THE UGLY DUCKLING.

the faggots out into the newly fallen snow, where he lay quite
exhausted.

But it would be too painful to tell of all the privations and
misery that the duckling endured during the hard winter. He
was lying in a marsh amongst the reeds when the sun again
began to shine. ‘The larks were singing, and the spring had
set in in all its beauty. The duckling now felt able to flap his
wings ; they rustled much louder than before, snd bore him
away most sturdily ; and before he was well aware of it, he
found himself in a large garden, where the apple trees were in
full blossom, and the fragrant elder was steeping its long droop-
ing branches in the waters of a winding lake. O, how beau-
tiful everything looked in the first freshness of spring! Three
magnificent white swans now emerged from the thicket before
him ; they flapped their wings, and swam lightly on the surface
of the water. The duckling recognised the beautiful creatures,
and was impressed with feelings of melancholy peculiar to him.
self, “I will fly towards those royal birds, and they will
strike me dead for daring to approach them, so ugly as I am.
But it is all one to me! better to be killed by them than to be
pecked at by the ducks, beaten by the hens, pushed about by
the girl that feeds the poultry, and to suffer want in the
winter!” and he flew into the water and swam towards the splen-
did swans, who rushed to meet him with rustling wings, the
moment they saw him. ‘Do but kill me,” said the poor
animal, as he bent his head down to the surface of the water,
and awaited his doom. But what did he see in, the clear
stream? why his own image, which was no longer that of a
heavy-looking dark grey bird, ugly and ill-favoured, but the
image of a beautiful swan.

It matters not being born ina duck-yard, when one is hatched
from a swan’s egg! Henow rejoiced over all the misery and the