THE TIGER. 
193 
Louisa. “He is the strongest, at any rate, 
and seems to possess more intelligence.” 
“And to have a better disposition,” re¬ 
marked Annie. 
“Why, as to that,” said Miss Louisa, 
“perhaps the less we say the better. A 
great many grand qualities have been attri¬ 
buted to the lion, which we may find, upon 
examination, do not belong to him any 
more than to the rest of his family. The 
lion has a very noble and majestic expres¬ 
sion of face; and people have, perhaps, been 
too hasty in reversing the popular proverb 
and concluding that ‘handsome does that 
handsome is.’ ” 
“Which shall we have to-night?” asked 
Daisy. 
“ The tiger, I think,—though we may have 
time for both. I had reserved the lion for 
the end of the cat kind, or genus Felis, as 
he is generally regarded as the type of that 
family.” 
“ I do not exactly know what you mean 
by that expression,” said Annie,—“though 
I have often seen it in books.” 
“ I mean that the lion combines more of 
the characteristics of the genus Felis, and 
17 
