This is a Pussy called Miss Moppet; she thinks she has heard a mouse!

This is the Mouse peeping out behind the cupboard and making fun of Miss Moppet.  He is not afraid of a kitten.

This is Miss Moppet jumping just too late; she misses the Mouse and hits her own head.

She thinks it is a very hard cupboard!

The Mouse watches Miss Moppet from the top of the cupboard.

Miss Moppet ties up her head in a duster and sits before the fire.

The Mouse thinks she is looking very ill.  He comes sliding down the bellpull.

Miss Moppet looks worse and worse.  The Mouse comes a little nearer.

Miss Moppet holds her poor head in her paws and looks at him through a hole in the duster.  The Mouse comes very close.

And then all of a sudden—­Miss
Moppet jumps upon the Mouse!

And because the Mouse has teased Miss Moppet—­Miss Moppet thinks she will tease the Mouse, which is not at all nice of Miss Moppet.

She ties him up in the duster and tosses it about like a ball.

But she forgot about that hole in the duster; and when she untied it—­ there was no Mouse!

He has wriggled out and run away; and he is dancing a jig on top of the cupboard!

THE TALE OF TOM KITTEN

[Dedicated to All Pickles, —­Especially to Those That Get upon My Garden Wall]

Once upon a time there were three little kittens, and their names were Mittens, Tom Kitten, and Moppet.

They had dear little fur coats of their own; and they tumbled about the doorstep and played in the dust.

But one day their mother—­Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit—­expected friends to tea; so she fetched the kittens indoors, to wash and dress them, before the fine company arrived.

First she scrubbed their faces (this one is Moppet).

Then she brushed their fur (this one is Mittens).

Then she combed their tails and whiskers (this is Tom Kitten).

Tom was very naughty, and he scratched.

Mrs. Tabitha dressed Moppet and Mittens in clean pinafores and tuckers; and then she took all sorts of elegant uncomfortable clothes out of a chest of drawers, in order to dress up her son Thomas.

Tom Kitten was very fat, and he had grown; several buttons burst off.  His mother sewed them on again.

When the three kittens were ready, Mrs. Tabitha unwisely turned them out into the garden, to be out of the way while she made hot buttered toast.

“Now keep your frocks clean, children!  You must walk on your hind legs.  Keep away from the dirty ash-pit, and from Sally Henny Penny, and from the pigsty and the Puddle-ducks.”

Moppet and Mittens walked down the garden path unsteadily.  Presently they trod upon their pinafores and fell on their noses.

When they stood up there were several green smears!