d
his eulogy, for they allowed Dona to handle them and stroke them without
exhibiting any signs of fear or displeasure.

"Suppose I were to let them run about the room," she enquired, "could I
get them back into their cage again?"

"Easy as anything, missie. All you've got to do is to put a bit of
cheese inside. They'll smell it directly, and come running home, and
then you shut the door on them. They'll do anything for cheese. Give
them plenty of sawdust to burrow in, and some cotton-wool to make a
nest, and they're perfectly happy. Shall I wrap the cage up in brown
paper for you?"

Dona issued from the shop carrying her parcel, and with a bland smile
upon her face.

"If these don't clear Mona out of No. 2 I don't know what will," she
chuckled.

"How are you going to smuggle them in to Brackenfield?" enquired Elaine.
"I think all parcels that you take in are examined. You can't put a cage
of mice in your pocket or under your skirt."

"I've thought of that," returned Dona. "You and Auntie are going to take
me back to-night. I shall pop the parcel under a laurel bush as we go up
the drive, then before supper I'll manage to dash out and get it, and
take it upstairs to my room. See?"

"I think you're a thoroughly naughty, schemeing girl," laughed Elaine,
"and that I oughtn't to be conniving at such shameful tricks."

Shakespeare tells us that

"Some cannot abide a gaping pig,
Nor some the harmless necessary cat".

Many people have their pet dislikes, and as to Mona Kenworthy, the very
mention of mice sent a series of cold shivers down her back.

"Suppose one were to run up my skirt, I'd have a fit. I really should
die!" she would declare dramatically. "The thought of them makes me
absolutely creep. I shouldn't mind them so much if they didn't scuttle
so hard. Black beetles? Oh, I'd rather have cockroaches any day than
mice!"

It was with the knowledge of this aversion on the part of Mona that Dona
laid her plans. She left the cage under the laurel bush in the drive,
and by great good luck succeeded in fetching it unobserved and conveying
it to her dormitory, where she unwrapped it and stowed it away in her
wardrobe. When she had undressed that evening, and just before the
lights were turned out, she placed the cage under her bed. She waited
until Miss Clark had made her usual tour of inspection, and the door of
the room was shut for the night, then, leaning over, she opened the cage
and allowed it