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152 Was ever affection meted out like this? Was there ever such Quaker-like precision of esteem? For thirteen years that cat had been Elizabeth Drinker's companion, and she had acquired for her just as good a regard as was necessary, and no more. It was not thus Sir Walter spoke, when Hinse of Hinsdale lay dead beneath the windows of Abbotsford, slain by the great staghound, Nimrod. It was not thus that M. Gautier lamented the consumptive Pierrot. It is not thus that the heart mourns, when a little figure, friendly and familiar, sits no longer by our desolate hearth.