n't know what he could have died of. Perhaps, father, if
you look at him you will be able to tell me."

"Well, let me have a peep," said the man, his mustache twitching as he
spoke.

Diana once again unfolded her small handkerchief, in the center of
which lay the much shriveled-up mouse.

"The _darling_!" said the little girl tenderly. "I loved Rub-a-Dub so
much; I love him still. I do hope Iris will think him 'portant enough
for a public funeral."

"Look here," said Mr. Delaney, interested in spite of himself, and
forgetting all about the dinner which would be ready in a few minutes;
"I'll come right along with you to the dead-house; but I did not know,
Di, that you kept an awful place of that sort in the garden."

"Tisn't awful," said Diana. "We has to keep a dead-house when we find
dead things. We keep all the dead 'uns we find there. There aren't as
many as usual to-day--only a couple of butterflies and two or three
beetles, and a poor crushed spider. And oh! I forgot the toad that we
found this morning. It was awful hurt and Apollo had to kill it; he
had to stamp on it and kill it; and he did not like it a bit. Iris
can't kill things, nor can I, nor can Orion, so we always get Apollo
to kill the things that are half dead--to put them out of their
misery, you know, father."

"You seem to be a very wise little girl; but I am sure this cannot be
at all wholesome work," said the father, looking more bewildered and
puzzled than ever.

Diana gazed gravely up at him. She did not know anything about the
work being wholesome or the reverse. The dead creatures had to be
properly treated, and had to be buried either privately or
publicly--that was essential--nothing else mattered at all to her.

"As Rub-a-Dub is such a dear darlin', I should not be s'prised if Iris
did have a public funeral," she commented.

"But what is the difference, Di? Tell me," said her father.

"Oh, father! you are ig'rant. At a pwivate funeral the poor dead 'un
is just sewn up in dock leaves and stuck into a hole in the cemetery."

"The cemetery! Good Heavens, child! do you keep a cemetery in the
garden?"

"Indeed we does, father. We have a very large one now, and heaps and
heaps of gravestones. Apollo writes the insipcron. He is quite
bothered sometimes. He says the horrid work is give to him,--carving
the names on the stones and killing the half-dead 'uns,--but course he
has to do it 'cos Iris says so. Course we all obey Iris. When it