should incite you all to slander your dead relations."

Whereat there was confusion in the demeanour of that feathered trio.




CIX.


"The Millennium is come," said a lion to a lamb. "Suppose you come out
of that fold, and let us lie down together, as it has been foretold we
should."

"Been to dinner to-day?" inquired the lamb.

"Not a bite of anything since breakfast," was the reply, "except a few
lean swine, a saddle or two, and some old harness."

"I distrust a Millennium," continued the lamb, thoughtfully, "which
consists _solely_ in our lying down together. My notion of that happy
time is that it is a period in which pork and leather are not articles
of diet, but in which every respectable lion shall have as much mutton
as he can consume. However, you may go over to yonder sunny hill and
lie down until I come."

It is singular how a feeling of security tends to develop cunning. If
that lamb had been out upon the open plain he would have readily
fallen into the snare--and it was studded very thickly with teeth.