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THE FIRESIDE SPHINX

who shine in Sunday-school fiction. Thus a lady living near Belfast writes that, when she was ill, her devoted cat went poaching for her every day, braving the terrors of the law that he might provide her with the partridges her delicate constitution demanded, but which her purse was unequal to buying. He never touched the stolen birds himself, having more conscience in the matter than his mistress; and, when she had recovered and desired no more, he ceased his benevolent depredations. Elizabeth Kurd's rabbit-hunting beast, to whom she felt such life-long gratitude, sinks into insignificance alongside of this Irish Puss-in-Boots.

As for the astounding instances of feline generosity which we are daily requested to consider, they would lead us to suppose that cats live only to do good. Gautier's little Bohemian, who shared his dinner occasionally with disreputable friends out of pure love for low company, shines but dimly by comparison with the small Saint Elizabeths, who apparently have no use for their dinners save to give them to all the poor and starving cats in the neighbourhood.

M. Jumelin, for example, tells us of his own Angora who every day fed out of her allowance a hungry companion; and Mr. Larrabee is responsible for the edifying history of a Norman cat whose conscience was troubled by the overabundance of