THE CAT TO-DAY 303 



or reading the prayers, to pat these small parishion- 

 ers, and scratch them under their chins, or perhaps 

 cuff them gently, if their vivacity prompted them to 

 unseemly gambols. One envies the children of 

 Morwenstow, who, alone perhaps of all the chil- 

 dren in England, must have felt downright enjoy- 

 ment in going to church. 



More pleasant still, because more in keeping 

 with the cat's natural instincts, which are domestic 

 rather than devout, is this little picture drawn by 

 Mr. William Rossetti from the recollections of his 

 childhood, and told in the life of his brother, Dante 

 Gabriel Rossetti. 



" In all my earlier years I used frequently to see 

 my father come home in the dusk, rather fagged 

 with his round of teaching ; and, after dining, he 

 would lie down flat on the hearth-rug, close by the 

 fire, snoring vigorously. Beside him would stand 

 up our old familiar tabby cat, poised on her 

 haunches, and holding on by her fore-claws inserted 

 into the fender-wires, warming her furry front. 

 Her attitude (I have never seen any feline imitation 

 of it) was peculiar, — somewhat in the shape of 

 a capital Y. ' The cat making the Y ' was my 

 father's phrase for this performance. She was the 

 mother of a numerous progeny. One of her 

 daughters — also long an inmate of our house — 

 was a black and white cat named Zoe by my elder 



