had entered his head to care how he looked. He laughed at Sammy Jay for
thinking so much of that beautiful blue-and-white coat he wears, and he
poked fun at Reddy Fox for bragging so much about his handsome suit. As
for himself, Peter didn't care how he looked. If his coat was whole, or
in rags and tags, it was all the same to Peter. But now Peter, sitting
on the edge of his sunning-bank in the far corner of the Old Pasture,
suddenly realized that he wanted to be good-looking. Yes, Sir, he wanted
to be good-looking. He wished that he were bigger. He wished that he
were the biggest and strongest Rabbit in the world. He wished that he
had a handsome coat. And it was all because of the soft, gentle eyes of
little Miss Fuzzytail that he had seen peeping out at him so often. He
felt sure that it was little Miss Fuzzytail herself who had left the
pile of sweet clover close by his sunning-bank the other day while he
was asleep.

The fact is, Peter Rabbit was falling in love. Yes, Sir, Peter Rabbit
was falling in love. All he had seen of little Miss Fuzzytail were her
soft, gentle eyes, for she was very shy and had kept out of sight. But
ever since he had first seen them, he had thought and dreamed of nothing
else, until it seemed as if there were nothing in the world he wanted so
much as to meet her. Perhaps he would have wanted this still more if he
had known that it was she who had fooled her father, Old Jed Thumper,
the big, gray, old Rabbit, so that Peter might have the long nap on the
sunning-bank he so needed.

"I've just got to meet her. I've just got to!" said Peter to himself,
and right then he began to wish that he were big and fine-looking.

"My, I must be a sight!" he thought, "I wonder how I do look, anyway. I
must hunt up a looking-glass and find out."