first glance, which seemed to resent my intrusion, melted into a smile as sweet as a woman’s, when I began to stroke and admire his cat. Just the same story all the world over,—praise a man’s pet and he’ll do anything for you; fight for you, or even lend you money. That Arab shared his supper with me.

“Ah! my son,” he said, “more than my goods, more than my horse, I love my cat. She comforts me. More than the smoke she soothes me. Allah is great and good; when our first mother and father went out into the mighty desert alone, He gave them two friends to defend and comfort them—the dog and the cat. In the body of the cat He placed the spirit of a gentle woman; in the dog the soul of a brave man. It is true, my son; the book hath it.”

After this I remained for some time speculatively silent.

The old man’s story may be taken—according to taste—with or without a grain of salt; but we must admit it is as good a way of accounting for domestic pussy’s origin as any other.

There really is, moreover, a great deal of the woman’s nature in the cat. Like a woman, pussy prefers a settled home to leading a roving life. Like a true woman, she is fond of fireside comforts. Then she is so gentle in all her ways, so kind, so loving, and so forgiving. On your return from business, the very look of her honest face, as she sits purring on the hearth-rug, with the pleasant adjuncts of a bright fire and hissing tea-urn, tends to make you forget all the cares of the day. When you are dull and lonely, how often does her “punky humour,” her mirth-provoking attitudes and capers banish ennui. And if you are ill, how carefully she will watch by your bedside and keep you company. How her low song will lull you, her soft caresses soothe you, giving you more real consolation from the looks of concern exhibited on her loving little face, than any language could convey.

On the other hand, like a woman, she is prying and curious. A locked cupboard is often a greater source of care and thought to pussy, than the secret chamber was to the wife of Blue Beard. I’m sure it is only because she cannot read that she refrains from opening your letters of a morning, and only because she cannot speak that she keeps a secret. Like a woman, too, she dearly loves a gossip, and will have it too, even if it be by night on the tiles, at the risk of keeping the neighbours awake. Oh! I’m far from sure that the Arab isn’t right, after all.

Pussy, from the very day she opens her wondering eyes and stares vacantly around her, becomes an object worthy of study and observation. Indeed, kittens, even before their eyes are opened, will know your voice or hand, and spit at a stranger’s. The first year of pussy’s existence is certainly the happiest. No creature in the world is so fond of fun and mischief as a kitten. Everything that moves or is movable, from its mother’s tail to the table-cloth, must minister to its craze for a romp; but what pen could describe its intense joy, its pride and self-satisfaction, when, for the first time it has caught a real live mouse? This is as much an episode in the life of a kitten, as her first ball is to a young lady just out. Nor do well-trained and properly-fed cats ever lose this innate sense of fun, and love of the ridiculous. They lose their teeth first. I have seen demure old cats, of respectable matronly aspect,—cats that ought to have known better,—leave their kittens when only a day old, and gambol round the room after a cork till tired and giddy.

BLACK and WHITE.
First Prize—Owned by J. Bradden, Esq.

WILD CAT (Half-Bred).
First Prize—Owned by A. H. Seager, Esq.

Cats of the right sort never fail to bring their kittens up in the way they should go, and soon succeed in teaching them all they know themselves. They will bring in living mice for them, and always take more pride in the best warrior-kitten than in the others. They will also inculcate the doctrine of cleanliness in their kits, so that the carpet shall never be wet. I have often been amused at seeing my own cat bringing kitten after kitten to the sand-box, and showing it how to use it, in action explaining to them what it was there for. When a little older, she entices them out to the garden.

Cats can easily be taught to be polite and well-mannered. It depends upon yourself, whether you allow your favourite to sit either on your shoulder or on the table at meal-times, or to wait demurely on the hearth till you have finished. In any case, her appetite should never get the better of her good manners.

“We always teach our cats,” writes a lady to me, “to wait patiently while the family are at their meals, after which they are served. Although we never keep a dish for them standing in a corner, as some people do, yet we never had a cat-thief. Our Tom and Topsy used to sit on a chair beside my brother, near the table, with only their heads under the level of it. They would peep up occasionally to see if the meal were nearly over; but on being reminded that their time had not come, they would immediately close their eyes and feign to be asleep.

“Poor old Tom knew the time my brother came in from business, and if five or ten minutes past his time, he would go to the door and listen, then come back to the fireside showing every symptom of impatience and anxiety. He knew the footsteps of every member of the family, and would start up, before the human ear could detect a sound, and hasten to the door to welcome the comer. He knew the knock of people who were frequent visitors, and would greet the knock of a stranger with an angry growl.

“Tom would never eat a mouse until he had shown it to some member of the family, and been requested to eat it; and although brought up in a country village, made himself perfectly at home in Glasgow, although living on the third floor. But poor faithful fellow, after sticking to us through all the varied changes of fourteen years, one wintry morning—he had been out all night—when I drew up the window to call him, he answered me with such a plaintive voice, that I at once hastened down to see what was the matter. He was lying helpless and bleeding among the snow, with one leg broken. He died.”

Cats will often attach themselves to some one member of a family in preference to all others. They are as a rule more fond of children than grown-up people, and usually lavish more affection on a woman than a man. They have particular tastes too, as regards some portions of the house in which they reside, often selecting some room or corner of a room which they make their “sanctum sanctorum.”

Talking of her cats, a lady correspondent says:—“Toby’s successor was a black and white kitten we called Jenny. Jenny was considered my father’s cat, as she followed him and no one else. Our house and that of an aunt were near to each other, and on Sabbath mornings it was my father’s invariable custom to walk in the garden, closely followed by Jenny, afterwards going in to visit his sister before going to church. Jenny enjoyed those visits amazingly; every one was so fond of her, and she was so much admired, that she began to pay them visits of her own accord upon weekdays. I am