"What a little unfledged thing you are, to be carrying that bit of broken glass about with you!" called out the philosopher.
"Better be unfledged than a one-eyed stork," answered Rosamond, and skated swiftly out of sight.
Now, the grandest skater of all was a griffin, who led all the others, skating more skilfully than any of them, and flitting like mad across the very thinnest places. It made one's head giddy to see him. His swiftness and dexterity, and a knack he had of knocking the other skaters into great black holes under the ice, whenever they crossed his path, greatly imposed upon them, and they all took care to follow straight behind, or to keep well out of his way. Now and then a bear would growl as he glided by; but the next day, Rosamond would see that bear hard at work building ice palaces, too busy to growl. One day, skating off into a corner, she found the griffin sitting apart, behind a great block of ice with his claws crossed, and looking very cold and dreary, like a snow image. "Would you not like to take a peep into my glass?" she said to him, quite amiably.
"No, child," solemnly answered the griffin. "I know by your ironical smile that you have discovered the truth--that I am nothing but a griffin. But if the skaters believe in me, why undeceive them? Why should magpies and zebras have any thing better to reign over them?"
"But do you not see how thin the ice is? You will surely break through some day."
"I know it," he replied. "A good strong trampling, and we are all scattered far and wide. But I keep the tigers and hyenas at work, and the more sagacious elephants bear their burdens in quiet, and let me alone. If there be a lion among them, he roars so gently it does no harm. And you must be a good girl, and keep silence. I see that you also wear a crown, and you know how heavy it is."
"Yes, and it is of brass too, like yours. I am trying to free myself from it," answered Rosamond. "But I do not care for your peacocks and parrots, and will not tell them yours is not of gold; so do not be afraid;" and off she went, leaving his majesty in a very uneasy state of mind. But he had nothing to fear from her, for although she did not cry, "Vive l'Empereur!" when he skated gorgeously by, she never revealed the fact that he was only a long-clawed griffin.