Every guest and stranger admired her and tried to
win her favor: while we of the household hid our wounds and delighted in
her cleverness and beauty.
"Polly was but a small cat to have a mind. She looked quite round and
kittenish as she sat before the fire in a rare moment of leisure, with
her black paws tucked under her white breast and her sleek back looking
as if it caught flickers of firelight in some yellow streaks among the
shiny black fur. But when she walked abroad she stretched out long and
thin like a little tiger, and held her head high to look over the grass
as if she were threading the jungle. She lashed her tail to and fro, and
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.
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