rder.

Also, there was Mrs. Tittlemouse's bedroom, where she slept in a little
box bed!

Mrs. Tittlemouse was a most terribly tidy particular little mouse,
always sweeping and dusting the soft sandy floors.

Sometimes a beetle lost its way in the passages.

"Shuh! shuh! little dirty feet!" said Mrs. Tittlemouse, clattering her
dust-pan.

[Illustration: Shooing a beetle]

[Illustration: A ladybird]

And one day a little old woman ran up and down in a red spotty cloak.

"Your house is on fire, Mother Ladybird! Fly away home to your
children!"

Another day, a big fat spider came in to shelter from the rain.

"Beg pardon, is this not Miss Muffet's?"

"Go away, you bold bad spider! Leaving ends of cobweb all over my nice
clean house!"

[Illustration: Spider]

[Illustration: Out the window]

She bundled the spider out at a window.

He let himself down the hedge with a long thin bit of string.

Mrs. Tittlemouse went on her way to a distant storeroom, to fetch
cherry-stones and thistle-down seed for dinner.

All along the passage she sniffed, and looked at the floor.

"I smell a smell of honey; is it the cowslips outside, in the hedge? I
am sure I can see the marks of little dirty feet."

[Illustration: Marks of little feet]

[Illustration: Babbitty Bumble]

Suddenly round a corner, she met Babbitty Bumble--"Zizz, Bizz, Bizzz!"
said the bumble bee.

Mrs. Tittlemouse looked at her severely. She wished that she had a
broom.

"Good-day, Babbitty Bumble; I should be glad to buy some beeswax. But
what are you doing down here? Why do you always come in at a window, and
say Zizz, Bizz, Bizzz?" Mrs. Tittlemouse began to get cross.

"Zizz, Wizz, Wizzz!" replied Babbitty Bumble in a peevish squeak. She
sidled down a passage, and disappeared into a storeroom which had been
used for acorns.

Mrs. Tittlemouse had eaten the acorns before Christmas; the storeroom
ought to have been empty.

But it was full of untidy dry moss.

[Illustration: Full of moss]

[Illustration: Bees nest]

Mrs. Tittlemouse began to pull out the moss. Three or four other bees
put their heads out, and buzzed fiercely.

"I am not in the habit of letting lodgings; this is an intrusion!" said
Mrs. Tittlemouse. "I will have them turned out--" "Buzz! Buzz!
Buzzz!"--"I wonder who would help me?" "Bizz, Wizz, Wizzz!"

--"I will not have Mr. Jackson; he never wipes his feet."

Mrs. Tittlemouse decided to leave the bees till after din