thin! You let me have the
managing of him. You know how fond of animals I am. I'll make him eat
from my hand, and sit up, and do all sorts of things.'

Her father replied that she could do what she liked with him. He was
tired of Toad, and his sulks and his airs and his meanness. So that day
she went on her errand of mercy, and knocked at the door of Toad's cell.

'Now, cheer up, Toad,' she said, coaxingly, on entering, 'and sit up
and dry your eyes and be a sensible animal. And do try and eat a bit of
dinner. See, I've brought you some of mine, hot from the oven!'

It was bubble-and-squeak, between two plates, and its fragrance filled
the narrow cell. The penetrating smell of cabbage reached the nose of
Toad as he lay prostrate in his misery on the floor, and gave him the
idea for a moment that perhaps life was not such a blank and desperate
thing as he had imagined. But still he wailed, and kicked with his legs,
and refused to be comforted. So the wise girl retired for the time, but,
of course, a good deal of the smell of hot cabbage remained behind,
as it will do, and Toad, between his sobs, sniffed and reflected, and
gradually began to think new and inspiring thoughts: of chivalry,
and poetry, and deeds still to be done; of broad meadows, and cattle
browsing in them, raked by sun and wind; of kitchen-gardens, and
straight herb-borders, and warm snap-dragon beset by bees; and of the
comforting clink of dishes set down on the table at Toad Hall, and the
scrape of chair-legs on the floor as every one pulled himself close up
to his work. The air of the narrow cell took a rosy tinge; he began to
think of his friends, and how they would surely be able to do something;
of lawyers, and how they would have enjoyed his case, and what an ass
he had been not to get in a few; and lastly, he thought of his own great
cleverness and resource, and all that he was capable of if he only gave
his great mind to it; and the cure was almost complete.

When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a
cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot
buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter
running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from
the honeycomb. The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad,
and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on
bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings,
w