Concerning Cats 



CHAPTER I 



CONCERNING THE "PRETTY LADY " 



SHE was such a Pretty Lady, and gentle withal ; so 

 quiet and eminently ladylike in her behavior, and 

 yet dignified and haughtily reserved as a duchess. 

 Still it is better, under certain circumstances, to be a 

 cat than to be a duchess. And no duchess of the 

 realm ever had more faithful retainers or half so 

 abject subjects. 



Do not tell me that cats never love people; that 

 only places have real hold upon their affections. 

 The Pretty Lady was contented wherever \, her 

 most humble slave, went with her. She migrated 

 with me from boarding-house to sea-shore cottage ; 

 then to regular housekeeping ; up to the mountains 

 for a summer, and back home, a long day's journey 

 on the railway ; and her attitude was always " Where- 

 soever thou goest I will go, and thy people shall be 

 my people." 



I have known, and loved, and studied many cats, 

 but my knowledge of her alone would convince me 



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