Concerning Cats 



" 'And all their harmless claws disclose, 

 Like prickles of an early rose.' 



"Yet the instant it is back on the carpet it feigns to 

 be suspicious of your interference, peers at you out 

 of 'the tail o' its e'e,' and scampers for protection 

 under the sofa, from which asylum it presently 

 emerges with cautious, trailing steps as though 

 encompassed by fearful dangers and alarms." 



Nobody can sympathize with her in the following 

 description better than I, who for years was com- 

 pelled by the insistence of my Pretty Lady to aid in 

 the bringing up of infants : — 



" I own that when Agrippina brought her first-bom 

 son — aged two days — and established him in my 

 bedroom closet, the plan struck me at the start as 

 inconvenient. I had prepared another nursery for 

 the little Claudius Nero, and I endeavored for a while 

 to convince his mother that my arrangements were 

 best. But Agrippina was inflexible. The closet 

 suited her in every respect; and, with charming 

 and irresistible flattery, she gave me to understand, 

 in the mute language I knew so well, that she 

 wished her baby boy to be under my immediate 

 protection. 



" ' I bring him to you because I trust you,' she said 

 as plainly as looks can speak. 'Downstairs they 

 handle him all the time, and it is not good for kittens 

 to be handled. Here he is safe from harm, and here 



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