“Oh, no,” answered the little mauve mouse.  “It was that wicked, murderous cat!  Just as Satan lurks and lies in wait for bad children, so does the cruel cat lurk and lie in wait for naughty little mice.  And you can depend upon it that, when that awful cat heard Squeaknibble speak so disrespectfully of Santa Claus, her wicked eyes glowed with joy, her sharp teeth watered, and her bristling fur emitted electric sparks as big as marrowfat peas.  Then what did that blood-thirsty monster do but scuttle as fast as she could into Dear-my-Soul’s room, leap up into Dear-my-Soul’s crib, and walk off with the pretty little white muff which Dear-my-Soul used to wear when she went for a visit to the little girl in the next block!  What upon earth did the horrid old cat want with Dear-my-Soul’s pretty little white muff?  Ah, the duplicity, the diabolical ingenuity of that cat!  Listen.

“In the first place,” resumed the little mauve mouse, after a pause that testified eloquently to the depth of her emotion,—­“in the first place, that wretched cat dressed herself up in that pretty little white muff, by which you are to understand that she crawled through the muff just so far as to leave her four cruel legs at liberty.”

“Yes, I understand,” said the old clock.

“Then she put on the boy doll’s fur cap,” said the little mauve mouse, “and when she was arrayed in the boy doll’s fur cap and Dear-my-Soul’s pretty little white muff, of course she didn’t look like a cruel cat at all.  But whom did she look like?”

“Like the boy doll,” suggested the old clock.

“No, no!” cried the little mauve mouse.

“Like Dear-my-Soul?” asked the old clock.

“How stupid you are!” exclaimed the little mauve mouse.  “Why, she looked like Santa Claus, of course!”

“Oh, yes; I see,” said the old clock.  “Now I begin to be interested; go on.”

“Alas!” sighed the little mauve mouse, “not much remains to be told; but there is more of my story left than there was of Squeaknibble when that horrid cat crawled out of that miserable disguise.  You are to understand that, contrary to her sagacious mother’s injunction, and in notorious derision of the mooted coming of Santa Claus, Squeaknibble issued from the friendly hole in the chimney corner, and gambolled about over this very carpet, and, I dare say, in this very moonlight.”

“I do not know,” said the moonbeam faintly.  “I am so very old, and I have seen so many things—­I do not know.”

“Right merrily was Squeaknibble gambolling,” continued the little mauve mouse, “and she had just turned a double back somersault without the use of what remained of her tail, when, all of a sudden, she beheld, looming up like a monster ghost, a figure all in white fur!  Oh, how frightened she was, and how her little heart did beat!  ’Purr, purr-r-r,’ said the ghost in white fur.  ‘Oh, please don’t hurt me!’ pleaded Squeaknibble.  ‘No; I’ll not hurt you,’