Beatrix Potter loved the countryside and she spent much of her otherwise conventional Victorian childhood drawing and studying animals. Her passion for the natural world lay behind the creation of her famous series of little books. A particular source of inspiration was the English Lake District where she lived for the last thirty years of her life as a farmer and land conservationist, working with the National Trust. She often based her stories on real places or creatures. For "The Tale of Two Bad Mice" she used her own two pet mice, Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca, as models for the principal characters, and the doll`s-house belonged to a little girl who was her publisher`s niece.