lined to put in my hand and fondle the
creature, its sharp red eyes gleamed so viciously at me from among the
straw; and I much preferred the black Angola rabbit, with fur as soft as
silk, which submitted to caresses with the utmost stolidity and
impassiveness.

"I expect George will bring his white mice home with him," continued
Cathy. "He has eight of them at school. He kept them in a box behind the
window-curtains in his bedroom, and the other boys had twelve brown ones
and a dormouse. It was a dead secret for weeks, but at last the second
master discovered it. He said they smelled, and he hunted all round the
bedroom until he found them. At first he threatened to drown them, but
afterwards he repented and said the boys might keep them in a shed
outside until the end of the term, and then they must take them home and
never bring them back to school again. George kept a newt once, too. He
had it in his water-jug for several days, till it escaped and he
couldn't find it anywhere. It turned up in one of the other boys' beds,
when the housemaid was doing the rooms, and frightened her nearly into a
fit, for she thought it was a serpent."

"Does Dick have pets?" I asked.

"Not of that kind. He generally has heaps of caterpillars and
chrysalides, which are turning into moths and butterflies for his
collection. He likes birds' eggs, too, but such a dreadful accident
happened last holidays that he'll have to begin all over again."

"How was that?"

"Well, you see, they were all in a splendid big box with little
divisions, which he had made on purpose. He put the box inside the lid,
and laid it on the top of the school-room book-case. Then he forgot he
had left it in that way, and thought the box was lying shut, only upside
down. So he reached up and turned it over, and all the eggs came
tumbling out, and more than half of them were smashed. It will take him
a long time to get so many together again."

"Does Edward collect?"

"Oh, stamps and post-cards and that kind of thing. He's fond of reading,
and it's dreadfully hard to get him away from a book. We have to pinch
him sometimes before he will listen. Shall we wash the dogs, and take
them down to the station to meet the boys?"

I was willing to assist in any project, so we spent the rest of the
morning in a moist and exciting struggle with a Pomeranian, a
fox-terrier, and two poodle pups. They looked beautiful as the result of
our efforts, and as we stood that afte