“How came I here!” said she, swallowing down the last wing of the robin as fast as she could. “I should think I had as much business here as you have, Mr. Cockielockie, particularly if the old woman sends me, to get her a few nice little birds for her dinner to-morrow. Of course I must taste them first myself, to see whether they are tough, and I am sure the one I have just swallowed was tough enough to choke me. I wonder how I could get it down at all. I hope, for the old woman’s sake, that the others will be more tender. And, perhaps, you will be good enough to tell me, Mr. Cockielockie, where you have been all this time, for there has been such a to-do at home about you, as never was known since Dame Featherleg drowned herself in the well: Mrs. Cockielockie in hysterics, all your family sobbing and sighing, and the old woman giving you up for lost, and hobbling off to Farmer Cloverfield’s to inquire whether Mr. Brush had been seen in the neighbourhood lately. For goodness’ sake go home as fast as you can, and make their minds easy, or Mrs. Cockielockie will be setting off in search of you, with all the family. If there should be anything that you do not wish mentioned, you may depend, Mr. Cockielockie, on my keeping it to myself, for I always say, the best of us would sometimes get into trouble, if our friends made a point of repeating every little thing that they might happen to know about us, that seemed to them contrary to one’s duty, and all that! So, if you will just take that turning to the right, Mr. Cockielockie, and then the next to the left, you will be on the way to the cottage, and I will come after you as soon as I have convinced myself that these nasty birds are too tough to be worth carrying home, which I strongly suspect to be the case. We shall have plenty of time to talk over our adventures as we walk along, for it is a good step from hence for you, though nothing for me, who am an excellent walker.”

Cockielockie thanked Mrs. Puss for her directions, and immediately set off on the way she pointed out, feeling very thankful for the prospect of returning to his family, and sleeping once more in his comfortable old place in the yew-tree. When Mrs. Puss, who very soon came up with him, as she promised, heard his story, she said, that if he took her advice, he would never set off on such an errand again, for if anything so important as the stars falling out of the sky, had really happened, she and the old woman should have been sure to hear of it, and could let the Queen know, without troubling a meddlesome person like Miss Peck, to whom Her Majesty would never have thought of listening for a moment.

So Cockielockie lived very quietly with the old woman ever after; the Queen has never been told from that day to this that the stars were falling out of the sky, and things have gone on much the same notwithstanding. Indeed, I know some people who think it a great pity that Miss Peck and her companions did not stay at home, and mind their own concerns. If they had but thought less of themselves, they would not have been so discontented with their condition, but there is an old proverb that, “to a crazy ship all winds are contrary,” and as, according to another homely saying, “Every path has a puddle,” those who spend their time in complaining, and turning this way and that, to escape from things that they do not like, and to better themselves in the world, are neither likely to be very useful to others, or to lead happy and prosperous lives themselves.

MASTERS AND CO., PRINTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET, LONDON.