glad to see you here to-night." "Hope you were not very tired yesterday." After which she slips softly away to resume her interrupted meditations. To take offence at such polite withdrawal is the sheer arrogance of ownership, and it is in but a limited sense that we can be said to own a cat. "I have it of nature that I must seek my own profit," she says with Epictetus; and if the most generous of the Stoics claimed as much, why not the least enthusiastic of animals?
Nothing, however, could be more lifelike than the picture Mr. Benson draws of Pussy stealing through the dusk, preoccupied yet observant, and betraying to none the dubious purpose of her stroll. It is finer, because less wordy, than Mr. William Watson's "Study in Contrasts," which presents once more to our patient consideration the deep dissimilarity of cat and dog;—of the collie, blue-blooded, aristocratic, yet sadly lacking in distinction, and the Angora, who regards him with languid and indolent contempt. Beneath the dog's company manners, beautiful manners befitting any court, Mr. Watson detects a substratum of vulgar impetuosity. For all his airs and graces, for all his noble head and silky coat, he is at heart
"The bustling despot of the mountain flock,
And pastoral dog-of-all-work."
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