Beatrix Potter - Ultimate Collection: 22 Books With Complete Original Illustrations. Beatrix Potter

      Then he took out the handkerchief of onions, and marched out of the garden.

      When Mr. McGregor returned about half an hour later he observed several things which perplexed him.

      It looked as though some person had been walking all over the garden in a pair of clogs — only the footmarks were too ridiculously little!

      Also he could not understand how the cat could have managed to shut herself up inside the greenhouse, locking the door upon the outside.

      When Peter got home his mother forgave him, because she was so glad to see that he had found his shoes and coat. Cotton-tail and Peter folded up the pocket-handkerchief, and old Mrs. Rabbit strung up the onions and hung them from the kitchen ceiling, with the bunches of herbs and the rabbit-tobacco.

      The Tale of Two Bad Mice

       Table of Contents

      ONCE upon a time there was a very beautiful doll's-house; it was red brick with white windows, and it had real muslin curtains and a front door and a chimney.

      IT belonged to two Dolls called Lucinda and Jane; at least it belonged to Lucinda, but she never ordered meals.

      Jane was the Cook; but she never did any cooking, because the dinner had been bought ready-made, in a box full of shavings.

      THERE were two red lobsters and a ham, a fish, a pudding, and some pears and oranges.

      They would not come off the plates, but they were extremely beautiful.

      ONE morning Lucinda and Jane had gone out for a drive in the doll's perambulator. There was no one in the nursery, and it was very quiet. Presently there was a little scuffling, scratching noise in a corner near the fire-place, where there was a hole under the skirting-board.

      Tom Thumb put out his head for a moment, and then popped it in again.

      Tom Thumb was a mouse.

      A MINUTE afterwards, Hunca Munca, his wife, put her head out, too; and when she saw that there was no one in the nursery, she ventured out on the oilcloth under the coal-box.

      THE doll's-house stood at the other side of the fire-place. Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca went cautiously across the hearthrug. They pushed the front door—it was not fast.