Speaking of colors, a friend has a cat that is devoted to blue. When she
puts on a particularly pretty blue gown, the cat hastens to get into her
lap, put her face down to the material, purr, and manifest the greatest
delight; but let the same lady put on a black dress, and the cat will
not come near her.

"Pompanita," the second Pomp in our dynasty, is a fat and billowy black
fellow, now five years old and weighing nineteen pounds. He was the last
of the Pretty Lady's ninety-three children. Only a few of this vast
progeny, however, grew to cat-hood, as she was never allowed to keep
more than one each season. The Pretty Lady, in fact, came to regard this
as the only proper method. On one occasion I had been away all day. When
I got home at night the housekeeper said, "Pussy has had five kittens,
but she won't go near them." When the Pretty Lady heard my voice, she
came and led the way to the back room where the kittens were in the
lower drawer of an unused bureau, and uttered one or two funny little
noises, intimating that matters were not altogether as they should be,
according to established rules of propriety. I understood, abstracted
four of the five kittens, and disappeared. When I came back she had
settled herself contentedly with the remaining kitten, and from that
time on was a model mother.

Pompanita the Good has all the virtues of a good cat, and absolutely no
vices. He loves us all and loves all other cats as well. As for
fighting, he emulates the example of that veteran who boasts that during
the war he might always be found where the shot and shell were the
thickest,--under the ammunition wagon. Like most cats he has a decided
streak of vanity. My sister cut a wide, fancy collar, or ruff, of white
paper one day, and put it on Pompanita. At first he felt much abashed