When Adam and Eve were living peacefully in their fair garden, while Satan was still seeking in vain a way to enter there, the Peacock was the most beautiful of all the companions who surrounded the happy pair.  His plumage shone like pearl and emerald, and his voice was so melodious that he was selected to sing the Lord’s praises every day in the streets of heaven.  But he was then, as now, very, very vain; and Satan, prowling about outside the wall of Paradise, saw this.

“Aha!” he said to himself, “here is the vainest creature in all the world.  He is the one I must flatter in order to win entrance to the garden, where I am to work my mischief.  Let me approach the Peacock.”

Satan stole softly to the gate and in a wheedling voice called to the Peacock,—­

“O most wonderful and beautiful bird!  Are you one of the birds of Paradise?”

“Yes, I am one of the dwellers in the happy garden,” answered the Peacock, strutting.  “But who are you who slink about so secretly, as if afraid of some one?”

“I am one of the cherubim who are appointed to sing the Lord’s praises,” answered the wicked Satan.  “I have stopped for a moment to visit the Paradise which He has prepared for the blest, and I find as my first glimpse of its glories you, O most lovely bird!  Will you conceal me under your rainbow wings and bring me within the walls?”

“I dare not,” answered the Peacock.  “The Lord allows none to enter here.  He will be angry and will punish me.”

“O charming bird!” went on Satan with his smooth tongue, “take me with you, and I will teach you three mysterious words which shall preserve you forever from sickness, age, and death.”

At this promise the Peacock was greatly tempted and began to hesitate in his refusals.  And at last he said,—­

“I dare not myself let you in, O stranger, but if you keep your promise I will send the Serpent, who is wiser than I and who may more easily find some way to let you enter unobserved.”

So it was through the Peacock that Satan met the vile Serpent, whose shape he assumed in order to enter the garden and tempt Eve with the apple.  And for the Peacock’s share in the doings of that dreadful day the Lord took away his beautiful voice and sent him forth from the pleasant garden to chatter harshly in this workaday world, where his gorgeousness and his vanity are but a reminder to men of the shame which he brought upon their ancestors.

* * * * *

“And therefore,” said the Crow, concluding his gossip, “therefore, dear Pheasant, I see no reason why we should envy your cousin.  We are very plain citizens of Birdland, but we are at least respectable.  I like you much better, having nothing to make you vain, nothing of which to be ashamed.”

* * * * *

So the Crow spoke, in the wisdom which he had learned from Solomon.  But the Peacock’s cousin refused to be comforted.  The shabbiness of his coat preyed upon his mind, and he fancied that the other birds jeered at him because in such old clothes he dared to be the Peacock’s cousin.  It seemed to him that every day the Peacock himself grew more haughty and more patronizing.