while a dear little dog jumps up at her, vainly striving to attract attention. She was evidently partial to pets.
Among the mosaics taken from Pompeii, and placed in the Museum of Naples, are several animated representations of cats. Two of the finest were found in the House of the Faun,—unlovely pictures both of them, revealing Pussy as an outlaw and marauder. That there were homes in which she was prized and cherished is prettily proven by a mutilated marble preserved at Bordeaux. It is a Gallo-Roman tomb of the fourth century, and on it we discern the broken outlines of a young girl clasping her cat in her arms, as though in death they were not divided.
From these fleeting glimpses of Pussy, before she plunged into the long darkness of the Middle Ages, it is a pleasure to turn to those later, calmer years, when, having survived the depreciation and persecution of centuries, we see her once again basking in the light and warmth of a rapidly ripening civilization. Even during the stormiest period of her career she was better off in Italy than in fierce Northern lands; and, with the dawning of fairer days, no happier proof could be afforded of the affection she inspired than her constant presence in Italian art. It is true that she makes an equally early appearance upon Flemish canvases.
