Mrs. Pragoff smiled quietly, but was too polite to tell Horace the rocks had been brought there as an ornament, at great expense.
"I like the Park, if it isn't finished," said Prudy, summoning all her enthusiasm; "I know you'll laugh, Horace, but I like it better for the rocks; they make it look like home."
The ride would have seemed perfect to everybody; only a wee sleigh passed them, drawn by a pair of goats, and Fly thought at once how much better a "goat-hossy" must be than a "growned-up hossy, that didn't have no horns." She thought about it so much, that at last she could contain herself no longer. "There was little girls in that pony-sleigh, Miss Perdigoff, with a boy a-drivin.' 'Haps they'd let me go, too, if _you_ asked 'em, Miss Perdigoff. My mamma don't 'low me to trouble nobody, and I shan't; only I thought I'd let you know I wanted to go, Miss Perdigoff."
Mrs. Pragoff laughed heartily, and thought Fly should certainly have a ride, "ahind the goat-horses;" but it was not possible, as the cunning little sleigh was engaged for hours in advance.
A visit to the Zoological Gardens comforted the little one, however, after she got over her first fear of the animals. There they saw a vulture, like a lady in a cell, looking sadly out of a window, the train of her grey and brown dress trailing on the ground. Horace thought of Lady Jane Grey in prison.
There was a white stork holding his red nose against his bosom, as if to warm it. A red macaw peeling an apple with his bill. Brown ostriches, like camels, walking slowly about, as if they had great care on their minds.
Green monkeys biting sticks and climbing bars. A spotted leopard, licking his feet like a cat. A fierce panther, looking out of a window in the same discontented mood as the vulture.
"See him stoop down," said Dotty; "he makes as much bones of himself as he can."
A horned owl, with eyes like auntie's when she looks "'stonished."
An eagle, with a face, Horace said, like a very cute lawyer.
A "speckled bear," without any spectacles. A "nelephant" like a great hill of stone, and a baby "nelephant," with ears like ruffled aprons.
An anaconda that "kept making a dandelion of himself."
A great grizzly bear hugging a young grizzly daughter.