but she appeared both hurt and mortified by my incomprehensible indifference to such delicious morsels."
Several similar instances have come within my knowledge. One is that of an English cat who was fed daily at the family dinner hour, receiving from his master's hand choice bits of fish and fowl. On a certain winter evening he was unaccountably absent from his post; but when the dinner was half served, he came rushing up the stairs, carrying two mice in his mouth. One he dropped upon his own platter, and then, before he could be stopped, he leaped upon the table, and deposited the second on his master's plate,—a graceful and pretty, however unwelcome attention, and one which plainly showed a well-bred desire to requite the hospitality he had received.
The same generous instinct animated a Boston cat of my acquaintance, to whom the fishmonger was wont, in his daily visit, to give some scraps of fish. One morning Amber brought a little dead mouse, and laid it at his friend's feet with a courteous gesture which said, "Permit me to make some return for your constant kindness." It is not possible to deny to an animal, capable of such charming liberality, that finer sentiment which bids us all acknowledge and repay a benefaction.
A more touching story is told of a poor old cat,
