more. She
was as good as her word, and hid us behind a great pile of clean dimity
curtains in the linen closet, where we remained snugly packed away for
some time. But, alas! one day our mischievous little mistress, during
one of her prowls, chanced to see the open door of the linen closet, and
could not resist a sudden raid upon it. To her great joy, she found us,
and carefully lugging us out, she hid us in her little cot till bedtime.

"It happened to be the day of a dinner party, and all the servants were
very busy with the preparations for it, while the lady of the house was
equally engaged in superintending the arrangements. In the evening,
while dinner was proceeding, Beatrice, well-dressed for the occasion,
was taken down into the drawing-room, to wait till she could go in to
dessert. Her nurse, no doubt, was using her ears and eyes in other
matters, and so the mischievous little maid was left to her own devices.
The results, however, were very unpleasantly visible to her Mamma, when
having helped a lady to some trifle, she observed her become very red,
and lay down her spoon. On enquiry, she found that she had met with a
wooden frog in the trifle, and on further search, some more of my
unlucky animals were found located among the sweet dishes. A huge dog
was floundering in the jelly, and a regular flight of birds had got
about the blancmange.

"The end of this disagreeable affair was, that Miss Beatrice was sent to
bed in dire disgrace, and the poor innocent animals, all sticky from
their sweet bath, were consigned to the fire. The few remaining
creatures that were left of all the numerous flock Fritz had so proudly
made, were hastily gathered together, and with me, given away next
morning.

"Our next owner was a little boy, a very quiet little fellow, to whom we
became the greatest treasure in the world. He thought me the most
beautiful toy that was ever made, although I was in such a sadly damaged
condition. His only grief was, that my stock of animals had now dwindled
down to about twenty, and of these, most were maimed or deficient in
some way. However, he wisely made the best of a bad matter, and set to
work to repair the damage as well as he could. With his elder brother's
kind help, and the loan of a glue-pot, he repaired, as neatly as
possible, the breakage of my gallery and staircase. With pins, cork, and
sealing-wax, he next proceeded to tinker-up the poor mutilated animals,
and succeeded in making