_Cats know the nature of sleep in others_.--A friend of mine has a pussy, Kate to name, who has been early trained to habits of cleanliness. When Kate wishes to get out at night she goes to her master's bedside, and mews loudly and entreatingly. To see how she will behave, sometimes her master pretends to be fast asleep, and snores loudly. "Oh!" thinks puss to herself, "this will never do;" so she invariably stands upon her hind legs, and pats his face with her gloved hand. When he gets up, she trots pleasantly before him towards a little window, which he opens for her, and admits her into the garden. The same cat for many years used to seat herself regularly every night on a chest of drawers, waiting patiently till the door of the adjoining cupboard was thrown open for her: this cupboard was a very prolific hunting-ground of pussy's. When she had kittens, and they were able to eat, she used to bring all the mice to them, and present them with that fond "murring" mew which all cat lovers know so well. Everybody knows that cats can open doors if left off the latch, and also that they soon get up to the mechanism of the old-fashioned hand-and-thumb latch; they open this by springing up, and holding on to the hand portion with one arm, while they press down the thumb portion with the other foot. A lady friend of mine has a large Tabby Tom who can open a room door, by standing on his hind legs and turning the knob with his teeth. This is clever, but cats even know how to _fasten_ doors, at least some do; and this same _lady was once in_ a cupboard, when one of her pussies came and turned on the button latch of the door, and made her a prisoner for some considerable time! In a small village which I know, there is an old woman who lives by keeping lodgers of the more humble description. As these have often to get up and be off early in the morning, the woman always gives them strict injunctions to shut the door when they go out, for fear of thieves. One morning a lodger had forgotten to obey his landlady's instructions. Pussy, however, had witnessed the infraction of the rule, and walked directly to her mistress's bedside, and began to mew most plaintively. Nor would she be content till the woman got up, when the cat led her directly to the door. Pussy wouldn't go out, but so soon as the door was shut, led the way again back to bed, _singing_. Old women's cats are nearly always wiser than others--they get more care taken with their training, and more comfort and love. They know all the ways, likes, and dislikes of a beloved mistress, and study them just as they do their own. Indeed, some of the things I have known old women's cats do are unaccountable in any other way, but the belief that they are possessed of a very high amount of intelligence and reasoning power. No wonder our ignorant ancestors believed them possessed of devils.