"Oh! they're too cunning for any thing," said Belle. "They hide in your pocket, or up your sleeve, or in your bosom if you'll let them, and eat out of your fingers, and are not one bit afraid."
"How did you tame them so?" asked Carrie, who was extremely fond of dumb pets of all kinds.
"We did not do it," said Bessie. "Willie Richards did it before he sent them to us; but white mice can be tamed very easily. Harry says so."
"Gray mice can be tamed too," said Belle.
"Why, no!" said Carrie. "They always scamper away from you as fast as they can go."
"Not always," said Belle, with the air of one who had good authority for her statement. "Not always, do they, Bessie? For there's a little mouse lives in our parlor at the hotel in New York, and he's just as tame as he can be, and he comes out every evening to be fed."
"And do you feed him?" asked Carrie.
"Yes," said Belle. "Every evening I bring a piece of bread or cracker or cake from the dinner table for him, and when papa and I come in the parlor he is always on the hearth waiting for us. Then papa sits down by the table, and the mousey runs up his leg and jumps on the table, and then he takes the crumbs I put down for him. Oh, he's so cunning, and his eyes are so bright! And he even lets me smooth his fur with my finger."
"How did you make him so tame?" asked Carrie.