You see it is just like this--when you once get a cat to love you, you, and you only, will become the study of her whole life. She soon finds out what pleases you, and what vexes you, and also what you love, and, whether that be dog or child, she will love it too, to please you. Cats will often, very often--just like dogs--lead those they love to places where something or some creature is in danger. It may be, as happened to myself once, while residing in Lincoln, two summers ago, when a cat came towards me out of an entry, and, as plain as any animal could speak, gazed up into my face, and cried: "Come, oh come and help me?" I followed, and she led me down the garden to a closet, through which her kitten had dropped into the cesspool below. Now just think for one moment of the amount of sagacity shown in this case! Piteously the little kit had mewed to her mother: "Mother, mother, come and help me?" Pussy's answer had been: "My dear, I can't, but I'll soon find those who will." And that was precisely my answer to the mother cat, when I saw the state of affairs, and I kept my word. And once again a pussy--this time my own--led me a long way from my work to a distant outhouse to see her kits. After she got me to the spot where they were, she rolled on her back and held them up one by one to be admired. I knew the case of a cat bringing her mistress hastily to a room where her sick child lay. The child had rolled on to the floor, and would have been smothered, except for pussy's timely aid. Some will hardly credit this, because they do not see the working of the internal machine--pussy's mind--nor know the motive power--love, love, love. _Amor vincit omnia_. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. CATS FEEDING THE SICK. "Ma conscience! mither, it kens its name?" Such was the exclamation of a little ragged and kilted urchin, in the remote Highlands of Argyllshire, as he heard me call my dog to give him a drink. The day was exceedingly warm, and we had had a long walk over the mountain, and had been kindly invited into a shepherd's hut, and asked to partake of a draught of cool, sweet whey--the very best of summer beverages. Nero was having a "talkee-talkee" with some rabbits, and didn't see his whey until I called his attention to it; hence the wondering urchin's exclamation. "Hoo shouldna he?" said the mother; "poor wise-lookin' beast. Ise warrant he kens mair than that." The idea of even a child thinking it strange Theodore Nero [the Newfoundland champion] should know his name was so amusing that I gave the boy "twa bawbees" on the spot.