“I don’t think I should care about not being in the fashion,” she said sadly to herself, “if only I could go back to my dear Mammy and the old home!”
Now, one day two ladies took refuge from a snowstorm in the keeper’s house, and as they passed the stable the smallest Stoat of all heard one of them say: “You see, I was right. Nothing is being worn but ermine!”
And the little person in the hutch recognised the voices of the two ladies she had seen in the wood. So now she had found out the great secret! And it so happened that the very next day someone left the door of her hutch open, and she slipped out very cautiously, lifting up her little head and turning it from side to side, and sniffing to make sure that there was no danger near.
Then she started to run across the snowy fields to her old home. But as she ran she heard feet behind her—and ran faster and faster—a little brown streak on the snow. And the feet came faster too. They were a dog’s feet—and she heard the dog’s quick breathing close behind her as she rushed into the old home, and knew she was safe. As soon as she had got over her fright enough to look about her, she received another shock; she was in the midst of a number of strangers all dressed in creamy white fur dresses who were only like her as to their neat black tails.
“I’m sure I beg your pardon,” she said; “I thought this was the house where my Father and Mother lived.”
“So it is,” cried the white furry people, laughing. “Don’t you know us?” And then she saw that these were really her own relations, only their dresses were new.
“We are wearing ermine now,” said Mrs. Stoat proudly.
“Oh, Mother, can’t I have an ermine dress too?” cried the youngest Stoat of all. “Nothing is being worn but ermine. I heard them say so.”
“Something else is being worn by you, at any rate,” said Mrs. Stoat sternly. “You’ve been living in some warm nasty place. If you’d stayed here in the cold like a good little Stoat, instead of running away from home, you would have had an ermine dress like everyone else.”