, if you like. I don't
trouble about you now. I can't help you if the new cat gets hold of you
some day: she is quite a different sort of cat from the old one and she
will catch you yet, you'll see. It's your own fault."

When she talked like that, as she often did, it was hard for the little
mouse to sit inside the wainscot and listen and not to be able to defend
herself. She would so much have liked to tell her young lady that she
was not quite so bad as she thought. She would so much have liked to
have her little lumps of sugar again. For times were shocking, since the
rat-catcher had been. She hardly dared eat a thing, for fear lest there
should be a hidden poison in it. And she could hardly go anywhere,
because of the new cat.

But she could not talk to the young lady. Nor did she dare venture
across the barn. She would have liked to talk to her cousin from
Copenhagen, but, one day when she went through the kitchen-drain, the
new cat was sitting at the other end and was within an ace of eating
her. So she had to be content with poor fare and a bad conscience.

5

Then, one morning, the house-mouse went out through the hole to the
wood. It was at the time when the cat got her morning milk, so she
thought there was a chance of peace and no danger. She ran a good way
off over the snow, right to the foot of the big beech, where she knew
that Cousin Wood-Mouse had her nest.

Then she squeaked three times in a particular manner which only mice
understand and which means that they would like to talk to the
individual concerned. And, when she had waited some time, sure enough
the wood-mouse appeared:

"Good-morning, cousin," said the wood-mouse. "To what do I owe the
honour of this visit? It is ages since I saw you last."

"Good-morning, cousin, and the same to you," said the house-mouse. "One
doesn't go out for one's pleasure at this time of year."

"No, indeed, cousin," said the wood-mouse. "I always stay indoors,
except just to take a mouthful of fresh air and throw out the shells.
Look, here is my dust-heap."

Quite a little pile of nut-and acorn-shells lay outside the mouse-hole.
The house-mouse looked at it and sighed:

"What a lot you've eaten already!" she said. "And I daresay you have a
great deal more down there in your store-room."

"No, that I haven't!" said the wood-mouse. "I shall be glad if I can get
through the rest of the winter on half-rations. If my own child were
suffering want, I could