mendicants, but as honoured guests; slipped easily into the soft and pleasant grooves assigned to them, and seemed very soon as much at home as if they had been born and bred upon the spot. For nearly four months they remained, and the three kittens grew into three fine young cats. Then one day they all disappeared as unaccountably as they had come, and no one of them ever returned again.
These are not easy things to explain. We can more readily understand an instinct which the cat shares with the wild creatures of the woods, and which bids her die alone. She seldom affords material for the pitiful scenes which Gautier and Loti describe with so much art; and even Moumoutte Chinoise tried to escape her master's eye, when she felt the awful moment drawing near. There is something which commands our deepest respect in the dignity and delicacy of spirit which impel this animal, however loved and pampered during life, to face alone, and seeking help from none, the insult and the agony of dissolution.
Even the exaggerated affection felt for the cat by those who are sensitive to her charm, is not altogether legitimate. In old days such exclusive and ill-placed devotion lighted the witch's pyre. Now we only laugh at each new proof of Pussy's influence, or wonder at the mental attitude of a woman who can advertise in the London "Standard"
