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38 sociable creature; it follows us everywhere in our walks, like a dog. &hellip; When I look at it, I cannot help believing in Metempsychosis: there must dwell within this cat some very refined aristocratic soul, one that looks upon everything with supreme scepticism.

"What is the matter, Martha?"

"Nothing. I have only dropped a hairpin."

A tortoise-shell pin has fallen out of her thick black tresses, and dropped on to the earth with a faint sound.

Martha is just now in a very lofty mood. This real world of ours strikes her as a contrast, ridiculous in its littleness, to the world we are speaking of. So she does not wish me to pick up that pin, though it has dropped quite close to me on the heather. To my mind this is too high-flown, too girlish. After all, the realities of life are paramount, and we ought to have so much intellectual culture as never to forget it.

Wherefore I give her the pin, smiling very sarcastically.

"After all," I conclude, rising from the hollow ridge and preparing to walk home, "I quite understand that what I have said