one turned out of her way instantly. You opened a door for her if she
crossed the room and gave you a look. She made you know what she meant
as if she had the gift of speech: at most inconvenient moments you would
go out through the house to find her a bit of fish or to open the cellar
door. You recognized her right to appear at night on your bed with one
of her long-suffering kittens, which she had brought in the rain, out of
a cellar window and up a lofty ladder, over the wet, steep roofs and
down through a scuttle into the garret, and still down into warm
shelter. Here she would leave it and with one or two loud, admonishing
purrs would scurry away upon some errand that must have been like one of
the border frays of old.

"She used to treat Joe, the dog, with sad cruelty, giving him a sharp
blow on his honest nose that made him meekly stand back and see her add
his supper to her own. A child visitor once rightly complained that
Polly had pins in her toes, and nobody knew this better than poor Joe.
At last, in despair, he sought revenge. I was writing at my desk one
day, when he suddenly appeared, grinning in a funny way he had, and
wagging his tail, until he enticed me out to the kitchen. There I found
Polly, who had an air of calling everything in the house her own. She
was on the cook's table, gobbling away at some chickens which were being
made ready for the oven and had been left unguarded. I caught her and
cuffed her, and she fled through the garden door, for once tamed and
vanquished, though usually she was so quick that nobody could administer
justice upon these depredations of a well-fed cat. Then I turned and saw
poor old Joe dancing about the kitchen in perfect delight. He had been
afraid to touch Polly himself, but he knew the difference between right
and wrong, and had called me to see what a wicked cat she was, and to
give him the joy of looking on at the flogging.