own room, and by night and day she was the happiest of cats; she was
called Woorara, which in time shortened into Woory. I wish I could wind
up Woory's history by assuring you that she was the most attached and
grateful of cats, but truth forbids. A few weeks after her arrival at
Hampstead she marched off and never was heard of more. It is supposed
that she took to evil courses: tasted the blood and bones of her
neighbours' chickens, and fell at last a sacrifice to the vengeance of a
cook-maid.

After this cat's departure Agnes took to heart a kitten, who was very
fond of her. This kitten, the first night she slept in her room, on
wakening in the morning looked up from the hearth at Agnes, who was
lying awake, but with her eyes half-shut, and marked all puss's motions;
after looking some instants, puss jumped up on the bed, crept softly
forward and put her paw, with its glove on, upon one of Miss Baillie's
eyelids and pushed it gently up; Miss Baillie looked at her fixedly, and
puss, as if satisfied that her eyes were _there_ and safe, went back to
her station on the hearth and never troubled herself more about the
matter.

To finish this chapter of cats. I saw yesterday at a lady's house at
Hampstead, a real Persian cat, brought over by a Navy Captain, her
brother. It has long hair like a dog, and a tail like a terrier's, only
with longer hair. It is the most gentle, depressed-looking creature I
ever saw; it seems to have the _mal du pays_, and moreover, had the
cholic the morning I saw it, and Agnes Baillie had a spoonful of castor
oil poured out for it, but it ran away.

Joanna quoted to me the other day an excellent proverb applied to
health: "Let well alone." If the Italian valetudinarian had done this