The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (1.1894)

Two Sketches

By Henry Harland

I—Mercedes

hen I was a child some one gave me a family of white

V V mice. I don't remember how old I was, I think about
ten or eleven ; but I remember very clearly the day I received
them. It must have been a Thursday, a half-holiday, for I had
come home from school rather early in the afternoon. Alexandre,
dear old ruddy round-faced Alexandre, who opened the door for
me, smiled in a way that seemed to announce, " There's a surprise
in störe for you, sir." Then my mother smiled too, a smile, I
thought, of peculiar promise and interest. After I had kissed her
she said, " Come into the dining-room. There's something you
will like." Perhaps I concluded it would be something to eat.
Anyhow, all agog with curiosity, I followed her into the dining-
room—and Alexandre followed me, anxious to take part in the
rejoicing. In the window stood a big cage, enclosing the family
of white mice.

I remember it as a very big cage indeed ; no doubt I should
find it shrunken to quite moderate dimensions if I could see it
again. There were three generations of mice in it: a fat old
couple, the founders of the race, dozing phlegmatically on their

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