me.

I looked up, and saw two very bright eyes and a sharp little nose close to me.

2. "I am a shilling," I said, "and I wish you would leave off smelling at me. I call it very rude." The little nose and eyes belonged to a mouse.

3. "I am not going to smell at you any more," said she; "you are not good to eat; you are no use for making a nest; and I should just like to know what right you have down in our hole, you cold, shiny thing."

4. "Good to eat," said I, " I should hope not! I was made to be spent, if you please. As to being bright, that is my great beauty."

5. "Well, I do not admire you myself, I must say," said the Mouse. And we never

spend money, so we do not want you.

I

pose you belong to our servants, the men."

sup

6. "Your servants!" said I; "why, I thought men hated you and caught you with cats and Hush! Hush!" said the Mouse, and

66

tr-
she shook from head to foot.

regard at all for any one's feelings?

7. “Oh, well, I forgive you," said the Mouse, "for I dare say you are very young, and have not

learned manners yet. But I must tell you we have a great deal of trouble with men; it is hard to keep them really in order. But they are good servants."

8. "I did not know that," I said.

"What use are they to you?" "Oh, a great deal of use," said the little Mouse. "First of all, they build houses for us." "I thought they built them for themselves," I said.

9. "Oh dear no," replied the Mouse. "But we like best to live under the floors, so we let them use the rooms all day.

run about, when we wish.

In the night we Besides, they keep

food in the houses for us, and that saves us a great deal of trouble. Men were made to wait upon mice."

10. "But I thought --" I said, and then I stopped, for I feared to offend the little mouse again. But I myself had heard the grocer say that he must have a cat or some traps in his shop, for the mice were eating all his cheese.

11. Of course if men were to grow very troublesome," said the Mouse, "we and our cousins the rats would just join together, and put an end to them."

far-thing

IX.

di-a-mond

non-sense

THE STORY OF A BAD SHILLING.-Part VI.

2. "Why, to begin with, we should eat up all their corn," said the mouse. "What would men do then?" "Eat meat," said I, "and jam, and drink milk, and such things."

3. "But they could not live on those," said the mouse. "Do you not know that they call bread the staff of life? No, I assure you, men are our servants; and, as you are only a servant of men, you need not give yourself airs down here."

4. So I spent a very dull time down in the mouse's hole. No one cared to look at me or spend me, so I was of no use; and all the time I knew that, out in the world, some people would gladly work hard to get me, if only they did not know me to be a bad shilling.

5. At last the grocer had the boards taken up, for the mice were doing a great deal of harm in his shop. The mice ran about and tried to hide, but a big fierce cat and her three kittens ran after them, and caught them all.

6. "So men have the best of it, after all," said I to myself. As for me, I was swept away in a mass of dust, and flung into a cart, which rattled away and away, till it came to a huge dust-heap.

7. "Oh, save me, I shall be choked!" I cried,

as I was thrown into this heap. But it was of no use. I was so soiled that no one would have known me from a farthing.

8. "Now I shall never see the world," I said, sadly. "Poor shilling!" said a voice near me. "So you have your troubles too. But cheer up,

there is a good time coming."

9. "There is no good time coming when one is in the middle of a dust-heap, and more cartloads will be thrown upon one," I said, sulkily, looking round to see who spoke.

10. "I am very sorry for you," said the kind voice, and I saw that it came from a roundshaped thing, about the size of a very large pea, that lay near me.

11. Now, as everybody had treated me with scorn, this kind tone was very pleasant to hear. "I do not know what you are," I said, "but I had better tell you at once that I am only a bad shilling. What are you?

12. "She is a diamond! a real diamond !" whispered an old brush that lay near me, in a tone of deep respect.