way."

"Well, you see,--" said Dorothy, in her old-fashioned way,--"you see,
I've been very much reduced." (She thought afterward that this sounded
rather as if she had lost all her property, but it was the only thing
she could think of to say at the time.)

"I _don't_ see it at all," said the Mouse, fretfully, "and what's more,
I don't see _you_, in fact, I don't think you ought to be hiding in the
bushes and chattering at me in this way."

This seemed to Dorothy to be a very personal remark, and she answered,
rather indignantly, "And why not, I should like to know?"

"Because,"--said the Mouse in a very superior manner,--"because little
children should be seen and not heard."

"Hoity-toity!" said Dorothy, very sharply. (I don't think she had the
slightest idea of what this meant, but she had read somewhere in a book
that it was an expression used when other persons gave themselves airs,
and she thought she would try the effect of it on the Mouse.) But, to
her great disappointment, the Mouse made no reply of any kind, and after
picking a leaf and holding it up to its eyes for a moment, as if it were
having a cry in its small way, the poor little creature turned about and
ran into the thicket at the further side of the dell.

[Illustration: THE MOUSE LAMENTS.]

Dorothy was greatly distressed at this, and, jumping out of the bushes
into the dell, she began calling, "Mousie! Mousie! Come back! I didn't
mean it, dear. It was only an esperiment." But there was no answer, and,
stooping down at the place where the Mouse had disappeared, she looked
into the thicket. There was nothing there but a very small squirrel
eating a nut; and, after staring at her for a moment in great
astonishment, he threw the nut in her face and scampered off into the
bushes.

"Nice manners, upon my word!" said Dorothy, in great indignation at this
treatment, and then, standing up, she gazed about the dell rather
disconsolately; but there was no living thing in sight except a fat
butterfly lazily swinging up and down on a blade of grass. Dorothy
touched him with her finger to see if he were awake, but the Butterfly
gave himself an impatient shake, and said, fretfully, "Oh, don't," and,
after waiting a moment, to be sure that was all he had to say, she
walked mournfully away through the wood.

CHAPTER VIII

SOMETHING ABOUT THE CAMEL

The wood wasn't nearly so pleasant now as it had been before, and
Dorothy was quite pleased when,