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 296 of April. No cajolery could persuade him to linger after his appointed time. He went, and the household mourned his absence, until the first bleak November days brought him back to resume his old place by the fire. Like Persephone, he seemed compelled to divide his year between two homes and two claimants. He might have served, as well as Demeter's daughter, to mark the relentless succession of the seasons.

"Every one is aware," says Mr. Lang, "that a perfectly comfortable, well-fed cat will occasionally come to his house and settle there, deserting a family by whom it is lamented, and to whom it could, if it chose, find its way back with ease. This conduct is a mystery which may lead us to infer that cats form a great secret society, and that they come and go in pursuance of some policy connected with education, or perhaps with witchcraft. We have known a cat to abandon his home for years. Once in six months he would return, and look about him with an air of some contempt. 'Such,' he seemed to say, 'were my humble beginnings.'"

The most curious instance of this strange trait that ever came under my immediate notice occurred a few years ago in Baltimore. A mother puss with three young kittens made her appearance one morning at the door of a very enlightened and cat-loving family. They were welcomed generously, not as