[Illustration]

It was very pretty to see Juno playing with the cubs, and all the children who came to the park wanted first to see “the doggie that nursed the lion-puppies.”  But when they grew large enough they were taken away from her, and sold to different menageries far away, and poor Juno wondered what had become of her pretty adopted children.  She looked for them all about the menagerie, and asked all the animals if they had seen her two pretty yellow-striped lion-puppies.  No one had seen them, and nearly every one was sorry, and had something kind to say, for Juno was a favorite with many.  To be sure, the wolf snarled at her, and said it served her right for thinking that she, a miserable tame dog, could bring up young lions.  But Juno knew she had only done as she was told, so she did not mind the wolf.  The monkeys cracked jokes, and teased her, saying they guessed she would be given another family to take care of—­sea lions, most likely, and she would have to live in the water to keep them in order.  This had not occurred to Juno before, and it made her quite uneasy.

“It is not possible they would want me to nurse young sea-lions,” said she.  “They are so very rude, and so very slippery, I never could make them mind me.”

[Illustration:  Juno is warned by the pelican.]

“You may be thankful if you don’t get those two young alligators in the other tank,” said a gruff-voiced adjutant.

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Juno.  “You don’t think it possible?”

“Of course it is possible,” said a pelican, stretching his neck through his cage-bars.  “You’ll see what comes of being too obliging.”

“We all think you are a good creature, Juno,” said a crane.  “Indeed, I should willingly trust you with my young crane children, but really, if you will do everything that is asked of you, there’s no knowing whose family you may have next.”

Juno went and lay down in a sunshiny place near the elephant’s house, and thought over all these words.  Very soon she grew sleepy, in spite of her anxiety, and was just dropping off into a doze, when she heard the keeper whistle for her.  She ran to him and found him in the hippopotamus’s cage.

[Illustration:  JUNO TAKES CARE OF THE YOUNG HIPPOPOTAMUS.]

“Juno,” said he, “I guess you’ll have to take charge of this young hippopotamus, the poor little fellow has lost his mother.”

“Dear, dear!” sighed Juno.  “I was afraid it would come to this.  I’m thankful it isn’t the young alligators.”

So Juno took charge of the young hippo,—­she called him hippo for short, and only when he was naughty she called him:  “Hip-po-pot-a-mus, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” But he was a great trial.  He was awkward and clumsy, and not a bit like her graceful little lion-puppies.  When he got sick, and she had to give him peppermint, his mouth was so large that she lost the spoon in it, and