so long to me."

"Indeed, nurse, I must read a little more, for I want you to hear how
Silvy and Nimble amused themselves in the hemlock-tree."

Then Lady Mary went on and read as follows.

* * * * *

Silvy was greatly pleased with her new home, which was as soft and as
warm as clean dry moss, hay, and fibres of roots could make it. The
squirrels built a sort of pent or outer roof of twigs, dry leaves, and
roots of withered grass, which was pitched so high that it threw off the
rain and kept the inner house very dry. They worked at this very
diligently, and also laid up a store of nuts and berries. They knew that
they must not only provide plenty of food for the winter, but also for the
spring months, when they could get little to eat beside the buds and bark
of some sort of trees, and the chance seeds that might still remain in the
pine-cones.

Thus the autumn months passed away very quickly and cheerfully with the
squirrels while preparing for the coming winter. Half the cold season was
spent, too, in sleep; but on mild sunny days the little squirrels, roused
by the bright light of the sunbeams on the white and glittering snow,
would shake themselves, rub their black eyes, and after licking themselves
clean from dust, would whisk out of their house and indulge in merry
gambols up and down the trunks of the trees, skipping from bough to bough,
and frolicking over the hard crisp snow, which scarcely showed on its
surface the delicate print of their tiny feet, and the sweep of their fine
light feathery tails. Sometimes they met with some little shrewmice,