ately there seemed to be no mouse at liberty just then. There
were mouse-holes right enough, all round the wainscot, and in the broad,
time-worn boards of the old floor. But never a mouse.

'Mouse, mouse!' Elsie called softly. 'Mousie, mousie, come and be
tamed!'

Not a mouse replied.

The attic was perfectly empty and dreadfully clean. The other attic,
Elsie knew, had lots of interesting things in it--old furniture and
saddles, and sacks of seed potatoes,--but in this attic nothing. Not so
much as a bit of string on the floor that one could make knots in, or
twist round one's finger till it made the red ridges that are so
interesting to look at afterwards; not even a piece of paper in the
draughty, cold fireplace that one could make paper boats of, or prick
letters in with a pin or the tag of one's shoe-laces.

As she stooped to see whether under the grate some old match-box or bit
of twig might have escaped the broom, she saw suddenly what she had
wanted most--a mouse. It was lying on its side. She put out her hand
very slowly and gently, and whispered in her softest tones, 'Wake up,
Mousie, wake up, and come and be tamed.' But the mouse never moved. And
when she took it in her hand it was cold.

'Oh,' she moaned, 'you're dead, and now I can never tame you'; and she
sat on the cold hearth and cried again, with the dead mouse in her lap.

'Don't cry,' said somebody. 'I'll find you something to tame--if you
really want it.'

Elsie started and saw the head of a black bird peering at her through
the square opening that leads to the chimney. The edges of him looked
ragged and rainbow-coloured, but that was because she saw him through
tears. To a tearless eye he was black and very smooth and sleek.

'Oh!' she said, and nothing more.

'Quite so,' said the bird politely. 'You are surprised to hear me speak,
but your surprise will be, of course, much less when I tell you that I
am really a Prime Minister condemned by an Enchanter to wear the form of
a crow till ... till I can get rid of it.'

'Oh!' said Elsie.

'Yes, indeed,' said the Crow, and suddenly grew smaller till he could
come comfortably through the square opening. He did this, perched on the
top bar, and hopped to the floor. And there he got bigger and bigger,
and bigger and bigger and bigger. Elsie had scrambled to her feet, and
then a black little girl of eight and of the usual size stood face to
face with a crow as big as a man, and no doubt as old. S