whom did she look like?"

"Like the boy doll," suggested the old clock.

"No, no!" cried the little mauve mouse.

"Like Dear-my-Soul?" asked the old clock.

"How stupid you are!" exclaimed the little mauve mouse. "Why, she
looked like Santa Claus, of course!"

"Oh, yes; I see," said the old clock. "Now I begin to be interested;
go on."

"Alas!" sighed the little mauve mouse, "not much remains to be told;
but there is more of my story left than there was of Squeaknibble when
that horrid cat crawled out of that miserable disguise. You are to
understand that, contrary to her sagacious mother's injunction, and in
notorious derision of the mooted coming of Santa Claus, Squeaknibble
issued from the friendly hole in the chimney corner, and gambolled
about over this very carpet, and, I dare say, in this very moonlight."

"I do not know," said the moonbeam faintly. "I am so very old, and I
have seen so many things--I do not know."

"Right merrily was Squeaknibble gambolling," continued the little
mauve mouse, "and she had just turned a double back somersault without
the use of what remained of her tail, when, all of a sudden, she
beheld, looming up like a monster ghost, a figure all in white fur!
Oh, how frightened she was, and how her little heart did beat! 'Purr,
purr-r-r,' said the ghost in white fur. 'Oh, please don't hurt me!'
pleaded Squeaknibble. 'No; I'll not hurt you,' said the ghost in
white fur; 'I'm Santa Claus, and I've brought you a beautiful piece of
savory old cheese, you dear little mousie, you.' Poor Squeaknibble was
deceived; a sceptic all her life, she was at last befooled by the most
palpable and most fatal of frauds. 'How good of you!' said
Squeaknibble. 'I didn't believe there was a Santa Claus, and--' but
before she could say more she was seized by two sharp, cruel claws
that conveyed her crushed body to the murderous mouth of mousedom's
most malignant foe. I can dwell no longer upon this harrowing scene.
Suffice it to say that ere the morrow's sun rose like a big yellow
Herkimer County cheese upon the spot where that tragedy had been
enacted, poor Squeaknibble passed to that bourn whence two inches of
her beautiful tail had preceded her by the space of three weeks to a
day. As for Santa Claus, when he came that Christmas eve, bringing
morceaux de Brie and of Stilton for the other little mice, he heard
with sorrow of Squeaknibble's fate; and ere he departed he said that
in all his experience he