Richards Laura Elizabeth Howe - Five Mice in a Mouse-trap, by the Man in the Moon. стр 8.

This question puzzled me at the time, but I found out afterwards that in the place where they had lived before, there was one special tree into which Nibble always had to climb when he had been naughty, and where he had spent many hours of penance.

Uncle Jack smiled kindly on the boy I mean the mouse and said "I have not found one yet, dear child! but I think that if you were to spend the rest of the morning in the house, and try to console Downy for his bumps and bruises, it would be a very good thing."

Nibble looked grave at this. He would have preferred sitting in a tree, and hearing the birds sing, and wondering where their nests might be, and how many eggs there might be in them, to spending the lovely, sunny morning in the house. But he went in without a word, remembering that Downy also had to stay in the house through his carelessness, and with aches and pains which he somehow had escaped.

He found the baby mouse curled up on the sofa in the library, looking very forlorn, with a handkerchief tied round his head. Mrs. Posset was sitting beside him, reading to him, for though Downy was a very little boy, he was very

fond of stories. His eyes brightened when he saw Nibble. "Oh! Nibby!" he cried. "Did dey catf de cat?"

"Indeed, I hope not!" said Mrs. Posset. "It is a strange thing in the nature of boys, that they like to see cats tormented."

"But I don't like to see them hurt, Mrs. Posset!" said Nibble. "It is fun to see them run, but the dogs never catch them, so no harm is done. And it is good for the cats to have a little exercise, I am sure, for they are lazy creatures."

"Humph!" said Mrs. Posset. "Well, I am reading to Downy now, Master Nibble, so "

"Wouldn't you like me to take the book, Mrs. Posset?" asked Nibble. "I must stay in the house till dinner, and I could read to Downy."

"Oh! yes, Nibby, read!" cried Downy.

"Very well, Master Nibble, and that is just what will please me, for I have not my spectacles by me, and the print troubles my eyes. Besides, the child's clothes are torn to shrivers, (this was a pet word of Mrs. Posset's, and I think she must have invented it herself,) and I must attend to them at once."

So Mrs. Posset, with an approving nod, trotted off to the nursery, and Nibble sat down by the sofa.

"What shall I read, Downy boy?" he asked.

"Wead Pinfkin!" said Downy very decidedly.

"'Princekin,' eh?" said Nibble, "Well, here it is, so listen! And perhaps, if you were to shut your eyes, Downy, you might see some of the pretty things that Princekin saw."

So Nibble opened the book, from which Mrs. Posset had been reading, and read this little rhyme:

"That is always the way!" he said to himself. "I never saw a child sleep so much in the daytime. In fact, there is no use in reading to him, unless you want him to go to sleep. But perhaps," he added "that is just what Mrs. Posset did want, and it is the best thing to do when one cannot go out of doors. Heigh ho! how pleasant it is out there! I wonder where Brighteyes is! She might come in and stay with me, I think, if she knows I am in the house." And Nibble sat down by the window, and looked mournfully out into the garden.