she got tired she set the elephants in order and shut
the door of the cabinet.

In all her wanderings through the long corridors
and the empty rooms, she had seen nothing
alive; but in this room she saw something. Just
after she had closed the cabinet door she heard a
tiny rustling sound. It made her jump and look
around at the sofa by the fireplace, from which it
seemed to come. In the corner of the sofa there
was a cushion, and in the velvet which covered
it there was a hole, and out of the hole
peeped a tiny head with a pair of frightened
eyes in it.

Mary crept softly across the room to look.
The bright eyes belonged to a little gray mouse,
and the mouse had eaten a hole into the cushion
and made a comfortable nest there. Six baby mice
were cuddled up asleep near her. If there was
no one else alive in the hundred rooms there were
seven mice who did not look lonely at all.

"If they wouldn't be so frightened I would
take them back with me," said Mary.

She had wandered about long enough to feel
too tired to wander any farther, and she turned
back. Two or three times she lost her way by
turning down the wrong corridor and was obliged
to ramble up and down until she found the right
one; but at last she reached her own floor again,

[[72]]

p071 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p072w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p073

v?