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 258 to shore. When Lusby's Music Hall in London was burned in 1884, it chanced that a cat belonging to the proprietor had recently kittened, and her little family lay in a basket at the rear of the stage. Three times that cat made her way through the smoke and fire, and reappeared, carrying a kitten in her mouth. The third time she was so terribly scorched as to be unrecognizable; she was blind, and of her beautiful fur hardly a patch was left. A fireman in sheer pity tried to catch the creature; but she leaped from his hands, and went straight back into the flames after the fourth kitten. That she reached it was proven by the two little bodies, burned to a crisp, that were found lying side by side when the fire was extinguished. It would be impossible to surpass the heroism of that London cat. Human mothers have done as much. It does not lie in the power of man or woman to do more.

In their ordinary family relations, cats show affection, consideration, and politeness. Paternity, which we stupidly imagine to be ignored, carries with it responsibilities that the father, when he is an honoured member of the home circle, never dreams of neglecting. M. Gautier found that the father's interest in his offspring was unremitting; and I once knew an English Tom who took the athletic training of his children entirely upon his