* * To see a cat catching a mouse, is no news; But to see a rat building a house, is strange indeed!

Another shade of the same meaning appears in Spenser's "silly bark," i.e. frail ship, and in Burns's "To a Mouse": "Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!

Mr. Buchanan seems to have no opinion, or, if he has one, it is a halting between two, a bat-like cross of sparrow and mouse that gives timidity its choice between flight and skulking.

I know that ever since I can remember I've had to keep as still as a mouse the minute Father comes into the house; and I know that I never could imagine the kind of a mother that Nurse tells about, if it wasn't that sometimes when Father has gone off on a trip, Mother and I have romped all over the house, and had the most beautiful time.

The list includes bloodroot, cowslip, houstonia, saxifrage, dandelion, chickweed, cinquefoil, strawberry, mouse-ear, bellwort, dog's-tooth violet, five species of violet proper, and two of anemone.

* AGNES AND THE MOUSE.

"Surely," said Mary, "it is a large mouse;" and it did not seem to be afraid, so they thought from its tameness, it must be hungry.

She took a few almonds from her pocket and went gently along towards the mouse and put it close by its side.

The mouse began to nibble, and soon finished it.

Agnes then put down two or three more, and left the mouse to eat its Christmas dinner.

I think you would have enjoyed seeing the mouse eating the almonds.

I watched all her movements, as the cat watches the mouse.

The clouds had broken up, and the moon was shining above the great rocks at the foot of which I knew that the owl was flying silently and searching with glowing eyes for the happy, unsuspecting mouse or young hare amidst the thyme and bracken.

A shadow floated by; he looked up: a hawk was passing overhead, ready to attack rat or mouse moving among the young birches and firs that were springing up in the clearance.

"Oh well, I know what I will dosomething quite as quiet as a mouse.

THE LION AND THE MOUSE A Lion asleep in his lair was waked up by a Mouse running over his face.

THE LION AND THE MOUSE A Lion asleep in his lair was waked up by a Mouse running over his face.

The Mouse, terrified, piteously entreated him to spare its life.

But the Mouse's chance came, after all.

One day the Lion got entangled in a net which had been spread for game by some hunters, and the Mouse heard and recognised his roars of anger and ran to the spot.

"There!" said the Mouse, "you laughed at me when I promised I would repay you: but now you see, even a Mouse can help a Lion." THE CROW AND THE PITCHER

"There!" said the Mouse, "you laughed at me when I promised I would repay you: but now you see, even a Mouse can help a Lion." THE CROW AND THE PITCHER

A big powdered wig, half as high as herself, was a-top o' her head, and, wow!was ever such wrinkles?and her old baggy throat all powdered white, and her cheeks rouged, and mouse-skin eyebrows, that Mrs. Wyvern used to stick on, and there she lay proud and stark, wi' a pair o' clocked silk hose on, and heels to her shoon as tall as nine-pins.

1. Write the plurals of the following nouns: town, country, case, pin, needle, harp, pen, sex, rush, arch, marsh, monarch, blemish, distich, princess, gas, bias, stigma, wo, grotto, folio, punctilio, ally, duty, toy, money, entry, valley, volley, half, dwarf, strife, knife, roof, muff, staff, chief, sheaf, mouse, penny, ox, foot, erratum, axis, thesis, criterion, bolus, rebus, son-in-law, pailful, man-servant, fellow-citizen.

One blonde mouse, by Edward Hope, pseud. of Edward Hope Coffey.