an indistinct dream, and I slept, oblivious of all. When I woke, pussy
had disappeared, the sun was setting, the cows were coming from the
pastures, and I could only return to the house discomfited. That
particular family of kittens we never saw till a fortnight later, when
the proud mother brought them in one by one, and laid them at my
grandmother's feet.

"What became of Beauty is as mysterious as the fate of the Dauphin. To
our grief, she disappeared one November day, and we never saw her more.
Sometimes we fancied she had been carried off by an admiring traveller:
at others we tortured ourselves with the belief that the traditional
wildcat of the north woods had devoured her. All we knew was that she
had vanished; but when memory pictures that pleasant country home and
the dear circle there, white-throated Beauty is always sleeping by the
fire."

Miss Fidelia Bridges, the artist, is another devoted cat lover, and at
her home at Canaan, Ct., has had several interesting specimens.

"Among my many generations of pet cats," says Miss Bridges, "one
aristocratic maltese lady stands out in prominence before all the rest.
She was a cat of great personal beauty and independence of character--a
remarkable huntress, bringing in game almost as large as herself,
holding her beautiful head aloft to keep the great wings of pigeons from
trailing on the ground. She and her mother were fast friends from birth
to death. When the young maltese had her first brood of kittens, her
mother had also a family in another barrel in the cellar. When we went
to see the just-arrived family, we found our Lady Malty's bed empty, and
there in her mother's barrel were both families and both mothers. A
delightful arrangement for the young mother, who could leave her