GRAY DAYS AND MERRY WAYS 



ance was short-lived. She soon learned to ac- 

 cept me as a necessary evil ; and from that time to 

 this Madame Jolie-Queue enters my room fear- 

 lessly whenever the fancy takes her and circum- 

 stances permit. She has generally been honorable 

 with regard to my possessions, but there are cer- 

 tain considerations which lead me to keep a close 

 watch on my furry visitor whenever she honors 

 me with her presence. Said considerations are 

 that she once abstracted a small toilet article 

 from my bureau ; that she occasionally has a fancy 

 for continuing the scallops and heightening the 

 open-work effect of lace curtains, and that she is 

 very partial to all woollen materials, and has no 

 scruples about cutting out and carrying away for 

 her snug little apartments samples of any warm 

 garment on which her eye may fall. 



Whenever I see poor little squirrel prisoners 

 peering out from behind cruel bars or treading 

 the dreary, interminable road of the revolving 

 wheel, I think of Rufus and Jolie-Queue in the 

 blessed free region of green trees and open skies; 

 and I realize that the worst fate that can overtake 

 them in the course of their life in the woods 

 would be kind when compared with the desolation 

 of imprisonment. 



