FLUFF-BUTTON THE RABBIT 
109 
It was not until she was three parts grown that 
the White Doe realised that she was not in all 
respects like other rabbits. By then she had learned 
many things. She knew that the badger and the 
hedgehog and the squirrel and the shrew are quite 
harmless, but that the fox and the stoat and the 
cat must be avoided. She knew that the meadow- 
grass tastes better than either the cockfoot or the 
couch ; and that the surest way to come to grief is 
to bolt into a hole without first finding out whether 
it has a back door or no. By degrees, however, 
she began to find out something more important 
still, namely, that the rest of the Fur Folk turned 
aside from her path. Did she hop into the clearing 
where the other rabbits came of nights to feed, or 
visited the Dark Pool among the sallies, then the 
circle was immediately broken up, and vanishing 
feet fired a whole volley of signals from the bushes. 
If she fed in the daytime, the squirrels overhead 
chattered and speculated until the jays took up 
the matter, and half the woodside was in a fluster. 
This knowledge did not come in a day. The 
pignut flowers died, and the enchanter's nightshade 
had sent up its faint spires in dark places before the 
White Rabbit realised her powers. It was the fox 
who opened her eyes to the fact that a certain 
magic was hers in her perilous ways. One evening 
