Produced by Irma Spehar and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) OUR PETS GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LONDON AND NEW YORK. Kronheim & Co., London. [Illustration] OUR PETS. This is Pol-ly's own cat, Top-sy. She looks ve-ry prim and quiet; but if you play with her, you will find she is a ve-ry mer-ry lit-tle cat. She will jump up-on the ta-ble at break-fast, and run off with Pol-ly's toast; and if mam-ma be wri-ting a let-ter, Top-sy will steal soft-ly a-long the arm of the so-fa, and rub her paw o-ver the last word mam-ma has writ-ten, and make a great blot in the let-ter. Some-times she will sit as still as a mouse on Un-cle Tom's shoul-der while he is read-ing, and look so grave-ly on the book that you might think she was read-ing too: but she is not quite wise e-nough for that. [Illustration] Car-lo is Har-ry's dog, and a ve-ry good dog he is. If you were to throw a stone twen-ty times in-to the foam-ing sea, Car-lo would plunge in, with-out a-ny fear, and bring the ve-ry same stone out to you. And if Har-ry loses his ball a-mong the long grass, Car-lo brings it in a mi-nute. And he can do bet-ter things than these, for one day in win-ter, when the ri-ver was fro-zen, and Har-ry was ska-ting on it ve-ry nice-ly, he came to a place where the ice was thin, for a hole had been bro-ken the day before, and there had not been time for it to get hard a-gain. Poor Har-ry broke through the ice and sank down in-to the wa-ter; he would have been drown-ed, but Car-lo di-ved down, and brought him out safe. No won-der Car-lo is a pet. These pi-geons be-long to lit-tle Pol-ly. They have a ve-ry pret-ty house to live in, and Pol-ly feeds them e-ve-ry morn-ing with bar-ley or peas. When they see her come with her lit-tle bas-ket, they all fly down from the roof of the dove-cot, and will hop round her, perch on her should-er, and eat from her hand. But if they see Top-sy steal-ing un-der the Trees, or Car-lo run-ning o-ver the grass-plot, a-way they all fly. The Pi-geons trust Pol-ly, but they will not trust sly puss, nor rough Car-lo. Pret-ty, shy pets, are Pol-ly's pi-geons. [Illustration] [Illustration]