Concerning Cats 



to follow us uneasily about and look earnestly up into 

 our faces, as if to say : — 



" Girls, this is not right. Everything is all upset 

 here and ' a' the world's gang agley.' Why don't 

 you fix it ? " 



She was the politest creature, too. That was the 

 reason of her name. In her youth she was christened 

 " Pansy " ; then " Cleopatra," " Susan," " Lady Jane 

 Grey " and the " Duchess." But her manners were 

 so punctiliously perfect, and she was such a " pretty 

 lady " always and everywhere ; moreover she had 

 such a habit of sitting with her hands folded politely 

 across her gentle, lace-vandyked bosom that the only 

 sobriquet that ever clung was the one that expressed 

 herself the most perfectly. She was in every sense 

 a " Pretty Lady." For years she ate with us at the 

 table. Her chair was placed next to mine, and no 

 matter where she was or how soundly she had been 

 sleeping, when the dinner bell rang she was the first 

 to get to her seat. Then she sat patiently until I 

 fixed a dainty meal in a saucer and placed it in the 

 chair beside her, when she ate it in the same well- 

 bred way she did everything. 



Thomas Erastus hurt his foot one day. Rather 

 he got it hurt during a matutinal combat at which he 

 was forced, being the head of the family, to be 

 present, although he is far above the midnight 

 carousals of his kind. Thomas Erastus sometimes 

 loves to consider himself an invalid. When his dot- 



40 



