during which I never forsook her, her eyes constantly fixed on me, were at length extinguished; and her loss rent my heart with sorrow."
You have heard, of course, of Doctor Johnson's feline favourite, and how it fell ill, and how he, thinking the servants might neglect it, himself turned Cat-nurse, and having found out that the invalid had a fancy for oysters, daily administered them to poor Pussy until she had quite recovered. I like to picture to myself that good old grumpy doctor nursing Pussy on his knee, and wasting who shall say how many precious moments which otherwise might have been devoted to his literary avocations. I dare say now, in that tavern parlour where the lexicographer held forth so ably after sun-set, he made but scant allusion to his nursing feats, lest some mad wit might have twitted him upon the subject, for you may be sure that the wits of those days, as of ours, could have been mighty satirical on such a theme.
Madame Helvetius had a Cat that used to lie at its mistress's feet, scarcely ever leaving her for five minutes together. It would never take food from any other hand, and it would allow no one but its mistress to caress it; but it would obey her commands in everything, fetching objects she
