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 172 Mrs. Carlyle his own excellent mouser, if she could tolerate "a cat with a bad heart." Apparently she could n't; but preferred one that was admittedly clever, though "of an unsettled turn of mind." This beast, wise in its restlessness, withdrew after a brief experience; and was followed by "a kitten, black as soot,—a most agile kitten, and wonderfully confiding."

Dear little kit! How long she stayed, or was permitted to stay, we do not know. There is but one more letter on the subject, and that one is not included in the published volumes. It was unearthed recently, and printed in the "Glasgow News." Its recipient was Mrs. Carlyle' s maid, Jessie, of whom, in other epistles, she makes bitter complaint; but with whom she appears to have corresponded on the most intimate and animated terms. Writing from Folkestone, whither she has gone for sea air, she implores Jessie to have everything in readiness for Mr. Carlyle's return. He is visiting his brother in Annandale, and she has been trying hard to persuade him to remain there, or at Aldersley Park, for another week.

"I hold out the inducement that I should be in London, after Monday the twenty-eighth, to welcome him. But I don't know. Man is born to contradiction, as the sparks fly upward. The very persuasion that he should absent himself a few days