And pretty lilies white as snow,
And every other flower you know.

And after that Billy Bunny asked the peacock to sing a song, but when
he started to sing, oh dear, oh dear. For you know just because a bird
has beautiful feathers he may not have a beautiful voice, and the
sounds the peacock made were dreadful.

Yes, indeed. And if the little rabbit hadn't skipped away he would
have had to hold his paws over his ears, and then maybe he couldn't
have stopped them up, for he had very large ears and very small feet.




STORY XVI.

BILLY BUNNY AND THE MARBLE DEER.


In the story before this I told you how the beautiful peacock sang a
song which was dreadful, so very dreadful that little Billy Bunny had
to hold his ears and run away from the lovely fountain.

Well, after he had hopped along for maybe a million hops or less, he
came to a little deer on a smooth lawn. So he stopped and spoke to
him, but the pretty little animal never said a word. He didn't even
look at the little rabbit, so Billy Bunny touched him on the nose,
but, oh, dear me! It was cold and hard, not at all like the nose of a
real little deer.