"Now you might have supposed that Mrs. Lion would feel badly because she had killed Mr. Rat without meaning to; but instead of that she said, looking at his body:
"'What a poor kind of a creature he must be, when he allows himself to be killed with what was no more than a love pat!'
"And a little mouse, who was sitting in a hole in the wall, having seen all that happened, squeaked with a nervous snicker:
"'A lion's sport is altogether too strenuous for such as us, and if Mr. Rat had been wise, he would have kept well outside the cage, fearing your play even more than your anger.'
"'It seems to me he was a wise little mouse,' your Aunt Amy said, and Mrs. Mouser replied with a sneer:
"He was a good deal like many others I know of, exceeding wise after they have seen the result of another's folly. But it seems to me that we are talking altogether too much about mice."
A CAT'S DREAM.
"I have been wanting to repeat to you what I call some very nice poetry, which Mr. Crow made about a dream of mine. It is really the best thing he ever wrote, and although I the same as promised not to ask you to listen to anything more of his, I am very anxious for you to hear it."
"Don't think that I object so severely to what Mr. Crow writes," your Aunt Amy replied. "I have heard a number of things he wrote which I thought were very good indeed."