Chapter XCI

"There, now," said a kitten, triumphantly, laying a passive mouse at the feet of her mother. "I flatter myself I am coming on with a reasonable degree of rapidity. What will become of the minor quadrupeds when I have attained my full strength and ferocity, it is mournful to conjecture!"

"Did he give you much trouble?" inquired the aged ornament of the hearth-side, with a look of tender solicitude.

"Trouble!" echoed the kitten, "I never had such a fight in all my life! He was a downright savage--in his day."

"My Falstaffian issue," rejoined the Tabby, dropping her eyelids and composing her head for a quiet sleep, "the above is a _toy_ mouse."