The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1

Oh, I am the merriest mouse That lives anywhere in a house! I love toasted cheese, and I love crusts of bread, And bits of old paper to make a soft bed. Oh! I tell you it's nice To be one of the mice, And when the night comes, And the folks are abed, To rattle and race On the floor overhead. And, say, don't you wish you could run up a wall As I do, every day, without getting a fall? And don't you wish you were a mouse, Living in somebody's house?

FLETA F.

WHAT YOU DO, DO WELL.

"WHY do you take such pains in cutting out these little figures?" asked Winifred of her brother Ernest.

"I will tell you why, sister," replied Ernest. "I take pains because my teacher tells me, that, if a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well."

"Did he mean that we should try to do well even in trifles?" asked Winifred.

"Yes," answered Ernest, "because, as a great man once said, 'Perfection is no trifle.'"