The weather is going to change; I feel it already by the pain in my left hind–leg; the weather is certainly going to change.'

'I can't understand him,' said the Snow–man; 'but I have an idea that he is speaking of something unpleasant. That thing that glares so, and then disappears, the sun, as he calls it, is not my friend. I know that by instinct.'

'Bow–wow!' barked the yard–dog, and walked three times round himself, and then crept into his kennel to sleep. The weather really did change. Towards morning a dense damp fog lay over the whole neighbourhood; later on came an icy wind, which sent the frost packing. But when the sun rose, it was a glorious sight. The trees and shrubs were covered with rime, and looked like a wood of coral, and every branch was thick with long white blossoms. The most delicate twigs, which are lost among the foliage in summer–time, came now into prominence, and it was like a spider's web of glistening white. The lady–birches waved in the wind; and when the sun shone, everything glittered and sparkled as if it were sprinkled with diamond dust, and great diamonds were lying on the snowy carpet.

'Isn't it wonderful?' exclaimed a girl who was walking with a young man in the garden. They stopped near the Snow–man, and looked at the glistening trees. 'Summer cannot show a more beautiful sight,' she said, with her eyes shining.

'And one can't get a fellow like this in summer either,' said the young man, pointing to the Snow–man. 'He's a beauty!'

The girl laughed, and nodded to the Snow–man, and then they both danced away over the snow.

'Who were those two?' asked the Snow–man of the yard–dog. 'You have been in this yard longer than I have. Do you know who they are?'

'Do I know them indeed?' answered the yard–dog. 'She has often stroked me, and he has given me bones. I don't bite either of them!'

'But what are they?' asked the Snow–man.

'Lovers!' replied the yard–dog. 'They will go into one kennel and gnaw the same bone!'

'Are they the same kind of beings that we are?' asked the Snow–man.

'They are our masters,' answered the yard–dog. 'Really people who have only been in the world one day know very little.' That's the conclusion I have come to. Now I have age and wisdom; I know everyone in the house, and I can remember a time when I was not lying here in a cold kennel. Bow–wow!'

'The cold is splendid,' said the Snow–man. 'Tell me some more. But don't rattle your chain so, it makes me crack!'

'Bow–wow!' barked the yard–dog. 'They used to say I was a pretty little fellow; then I lay in a velvet–covered chair in my master's house. My mistress used to nurse me, and kiss and fondle me, and call me her dear, sweet little Alice! But by–and–by I grew too big, and I was given to the housekeeper, and I went into the kitchen. You can see into it from where you are standing; you can look at the room in which I was master, for so I was when I was with the housekeeper. Of course it was a smaller place than upstairs, but it was more comfortable, for I wasn't chased about and teased by the children as I had been before. My food was just as good, or even better. I had my own pillow, and there was a stove there, which at this time of year is the most beautiful thing in the world. I used to creep right under that stove. Ah me! I often dream of that stove still! Bow–wow!'

'Is a stove so beautiful?' asked the Snow–man.