shrieks and howls of horror. "Do
pray come down and see what this vile, nasty, horrid old frog has been
doing!" Down we came; and there sat our virtuous old philosopher, with
his poor little brother's hind legs still sticking out of the corner of
his mouth, as if he were smoking them for a cigar, all helplessly
palpitating as they were. In fact, our solemn old friend had done what
many a solemn hypocrite before has done,--swallowed his poor brother,
neck and crop,--and sat there with the most brazen indifference, looking
as if he had done the most proper and virtuous thing in the world.

Immediately he was marched out of the conservatory at the point of the
walking-stick, and made to hop down into the river, into whose waters he
splashed; and we saw him no more. We regret to say that the popular
indignation was so precipitate in its results; otherwise the special
artist who sketched Hum, the son of Buz, intended to have made a sketch
of the old villain, as he sat with his luckless victim's hind legs
projecting from his solemn mouth. With all his moral faults, he was a
good sitter, and would probably have sat immovable any length of time
that could be desired.

Of other woodland neighbors there were some which we saw occasionally.
The shores of the river were lined here and there with the holes of the
muskrats; and, in rowing by their settlements, we were sometimes
strongly reminded of them by the overpowering odor of the perfume from
which they get their name. There were also owls, whose nests were high
up in some of the old chestnut-trees. Often in the lonely hours of the
night we could hear them gibbering with a sort of wild, hollow laugh
among the distant trees. But one tenant of the woods made us some
trouble in the autumn. It was a little flying-squirrel, who took to
making excursions into our house in the night season, coming down
chimney into the chambers, rustling about among the clothes, cracking
nuts or nibbling at any morsels of anything that suited his fancy. For a
long time the inmates of the rooms were wakened in the night by
mysterious noises, thumps, and rappings, and so lighted candles, and
searched in vain to find whence they came; for the moment any movement
was made, the rogue whipped up chimney, and left us a prey to the most
mysterious alarms. What could it be?

But one night our fine gentleman bounced in at the window of another
room, which had no fireplace; and the fair occupant, rising in the