brothers eighteen months old. The great boy, in a sort of ecstasy at
some of the drolleries of his little sister, seized her and put her
in his mouth, taking into it nearly the whole head of the poor
little thing. Her cry was so shrill that the baby boy opened his
jaws and let the unfortunate Piccolissima fall on the floor. She did
not recover for a long time from this fall. Another time, a large
cat, a great mouser, ran after her, and it was with difficulty they
rescued Piccolissima from the claws of Raminagrobis. The father, Mr.
Thumb, could not repress some anxiety about the fate of his amiable
daughter, who had more than common intelligence, and who, by her
extreme smallness, was exposed to so many dangers.

Piccolissima did her best to acquire knowledge. She had the best
intentions in the world; she desired in every thing to please all
who approached her; but her extreme restlessness led her away in
spite of herself. One evening she lost herself in the solitude of a
drawer in which was kept some tobacco; she came near dying from the
effect of it. Once she was near drowning in a superb salad dish of
frothed eggs, which she may have taken for snow mountains. She had a
passion for discovery, she had a prodigious activity of mind and
body, and yet they could find nothing for her to do, "because," they
said, "she is so little, so delicate." She could not play with
children of her own age, she was not allowed to run about, and
without object, without employment, without means of studying, with
no companions, no sympathy, the poor little thing was in danger of
falling into a state of apathy, more to be feared than the accidents
from which they wished to preserve her.

One day, towards the end of February, Piccolissima had been placed
upon the mantelpiece. Her mother had gone out; her father, who did