talk about it at all for a long time, though he laughed when he heard of the lamp-men running up, up, up, like squirrels, and keeping the great big world moving round. It was such nonsense, you know. But there was one good thing which came out of Joe's illness. Whilst he lay sick there of brain-fever, his legs, and indeed his whole body, grew, and grew, and grew. When he got up and could stand, and even walk a little, he was nearly as tall as his mother, and the best of it was, his head had not grown a bit-on account of the blister, Joe always said; so it was not too big any more, and he never tumbled down again. The Dame bought a lot more jugs, and basins, and cups, and things, and Joe never broke one, because he could walk quite steadily now, and his head was just the right size for his tall body; so you see that fall turned out to be a very good thing for Joe as well as for all the "joogs."

CHAPTER IV.

A MOUSE'S WEDDING.

"My eldest daughter Bruna is going to be married to-morrow to young Friskett, of the Granary, over the way; I hope you will all come to the supper party.".

This is what old Mrs. Bright-eyes said to her friends and neighbours the other day. It was whilst the summer still made the nights so hot for us, especially when the moon shone, as it was doing just then. Mice are obliged to give their parties on moonlight nights because they can't understand about gas. They eat their candles, and think us, I daresay, excessively foolish for burning them away. How stupid

we should consider anyone who hung plumcakes, and apricot jam, or even beef and mutton, about a room to see to dance by, instead of eating it all up for supper! Well, mice look upon candles exactly in the same way.

There were great preparations for this wedding, I can tell you. Old Mr. Bright-eyes said it was all a dreadful trouble, and that he should be ruined, and asked his wife very often if she thought he was made of cheese-parings and apple-pips, and so forth. But she always answered, "It's only once in a way, you know, my dear; and I am sure you would like your eldest daughter to be married comfortably and nicely." He was a kind old mouse that, though his whiskers were getting very grey, and he declared he liked better to sit well within his hole than to come out on the Granary floor on ever so fine a night and race about with the others.

"You see, Mother," he would say, "it's all very well for the young folks, but I'm a deal too stout

to run as I used to; and if—if, I say, it should happen that—well, you know what I mean-there might be a cat-astrophe."

Mr. Bright-eyes did not mean anything when he said this, but his wife gave such a squeal and a jump you could have heard her all over the house.

"Oh, John, John, you will be the death of me, some day! How can you say such horrid things?"

Mr. Bright-eyes felt rather ashamed of himself, though it had been quite an accident; for you must know it is considered the worst possible manners in the mouse-world to allude, ever so distantly, to the existence of cats. Of course all mice know there are such creatures, and they never really cease thinking of them for one single moment; but still no well-bred mouse pretends to be aware that there are cats, and still less terriers.

Dogs are bad enough; but, thank goodness," said honest John Bright-eyes, "they have the manners to bark before they attack one, and

then it is not so difficult to get out of their way, especially as they become so excited they don't always see distinctly where one is hiding; but cats-ugh! They never give the least warning of their presence, but creep about in the quietest way, and you know nothing whatever until you feel a paw with sharp hooks in it, stuck right in the middle of your back."

Mr. Bright-eyes said all this at his club. He would not have dared to speak so openly before his wife and daughters; and he managed to make even all the old-fogey mice, who were sitting round their walnuts and train-oil, quite nervous and low-spirited. They had no heart to stay and discuss the dreadful scarcity of crumbs, or the probable rise in grains, but each one looked nervously over his shoulder, and said, "Well, good-night; I think I'll be going now. I promised my wife I would come home early to-night," and scurried off to their holes as fast as possible.