there, and only satisfied to be sleek and quiet and friendly while he was well fed and made much of; so she pretended to the rest that he was an old friend of hers, and whenever he came to see them, she made great eyes at him, and purred, and mewed, and talked, as though they had known each other years before in much higher society. Only the Dog, who I will say was a very honest fellow, though he was no friend of my family, spoke out plainly, and he declared, bluntly, that he disliked the new comer, and that if ever he met him, he would pick a quarrel. But the Fox was so courteous, and used to behave so gently, that the rest of them said they would not hear of such ill-temper; and, in fact, whenever the Dog came in, Mr. Foxey con trived to slip away, especially after the time that he was nearly caught by his enemy, in consequence of the tail of his coat being shut in a door.

"Well, the Fox was never quite imposed upon by all this, but he thought there might be some truth in it; and one night he told his friends that he had fallen very ill, and must leave them for a time to recruit his health. They all professed the greatest anxiety, and there was such a cackling and braying and mewing and hissing, that anybody would have thought he was the dearest friend of them all, and that he was going to die.

"He looked very ill certainly, and even while they were talking he was taken so much worse that he actually did die; or at least there was every appearance of his having done so, for his eyes were quite glassy and his tongue

lobbed out at the side of his jaws, where his friends all trembled to see the fangs of teeth; and at last he fell back with his arms crossed upon his breast, and gave a final struggle; after which all was still.

"Poor beggar!' said the Ox. 'He was an amusing sort of fellow at times; but I'm afraid only a low adventurer. It was a good thing he never tried to borrow anything of me; and, on the whole, things are as well as they are, for these sort of people get very troublesome at times.'

"Haw! hee! Haw! yes,' said the Ass, with a fashionable air. Haw hee haw; but don't you think it's very -hee haw-impertinent for him to take the-hee hawliberty to come here to-hee haw-die? I always thought he was a-hee a haw-low fellow, and a-hee haw-snob.'

"He was wanting in tok-a-rok-a-tok-tok spirit, and was very deficient in rok took argument; and I think he was a coward. I tok-a-roo-doo-do indeed,' crowed the Cock.

"I must sss-say I sssaw he was-sss deceitful at first, and sss-so I disliked him. Though I was sss-so sss-civil, I only consulted my own sss-safety, because he was sssso sss-silly as to come as my sss-suitor,' hissed the Goose.

"How, now, the least you can do is to say nothing: he knew what I thought of him, and I don't mind crying now he's gone, poor mew-ow mia-ow mol-row fellow,' said the Cat, who was as artful as the Fox, and had seen a twinkle in his eye by which she knew he was not dead.

"Hough! Stuff!' growled the Dog, who came in at the

moment. 'Dead is he? Well there's no need to say howhow-how, I disliked him ; but if he's dead I shan't have to fight him, that's all.'

"The party soon left the dead Fox quite alone and went about their affairs; all except the Cat, who watched him from the top of the barn where she hid behind a tile.

"The very next night the Goose was found, all torn and mangled and with her head off, in the next field; then the Cock was stripped of half his tail feathers; the Ox was bitten and scored all down his fat ribs till he roared again; and the Donkey was found kicking and yelling with half an ear off, and a prickly bush under his tail.

“One night the Fox came in and thought he saw that the Dog was chained up to his house; but he wasn't, for he had been told what to do by the Cat, who could hardly persuade him to be guilty of a deception, he was so honest. However, when he saw the Fox, and knew that he had done so much mischief, he sprung out a little too soon, and caught him by the long tail of his coat.

"I said I'd kill you,' said the Dog, and so now fight;' but Foxey was too artful for that; he actually turned round and snipped his own tail off with his white teeth, leaving it in his enemy's jaws, while he fled across the fields. I saw him long afterwards, when he was a notorious robber and bandit, but he never wore a coat with a tail again: he kept to jackets ever afterwards, and was a disgrace to his family."

How the Minstrel was bidden to the Wedding, and what happened there. He meets with a Companion, and they defeat the King of the Vampyres.

Ο

UR Troubadour had finished the mending of his Mandolin before Master Mus got to the end of his story, and after each of the travellers had taken a handy staff from the tree, to help him on his way, they went along the Forest road in company, laughing and talking as they walked.

You may be sure, therefore, that Rana was rather surprised to see his friend suddenly step back, check himself in the middle of a chuckle, and scramble into a hole. by the road-side, dragging his sack of meal after him.

The Froglander could see nothing, but presently following the direction of Master Mus's bright eyes, which were twinkling from behind the meal-bag, he looked across a little stream, just on the edge of the Wood, to which they had come, and there saw a tremendous-looking person with green eyes, a furry, particoloured coat, and with such a fierce expression that, added to his gigantic size, he was enough to frighten even the Troubadour himself.

"Who in the world is that brigand-looking fellow?" said Rana, following to the mouth of the hole, and whispering to his companion; "he will have to cross the stream, whoever he is, and so we have time to get ready either to fight or run, or perhaps both, for you know:

'He who fights and runs away,
May live to fight another day.'"

"Don't make a jest of it," said poor little Mus; "that is our enemy, the chief of the Feline tribe, who have come down to make a raid upon us and our country; in fact he is the brother of that very Cat, who was the friend of the Fox, and his presence here means no good to us."

"Stay you here," said Rana, "and I will go across the stream, and listen under the bank, for, I see, he has a companion with him, and they are talking together."

Be sure you keep in the water, then," said Mus, “for none of the Cat family like to wet their feet. I never