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 Rh of lawyers, and Saint Gertrude, gentlest of mystics, had deigned to take her under their protection. Moreover a pretty Italian legend softened in some degree the asperity of her lot in that chosen land; for it was whispered that she was created—not to mitigate the discomforts of the Ark—but to minister to the still greater needs of Saint Francis de Paula, when the holy recluse was living in the austere loneliness of his hermitage. Satan, having failed many times to beguile the Saint from a rapt ecstasy of prayer, sent, as a last resource, hundreds of mice to torment him. They swarmed in his narrow cell, gnawed his garments, nibbled at his feet, and behaved with the shameless audacity of vermin that knew their diabolic origin, and feared no retribution. The monk's prayers seemed ended, when suddenly there sprang from his loose sleeve a small furry animal that attacked the invaders with incredible speed and fury. So vigorous was its onslaught, that only two mice escaped by hiding in a crack of the wall; and it is to find these fugitives that the cat's descendants still sit motionless before every little hole and crevice, waiting, as they have waited ever since, for their appointed prey.

But neither the gratitude of Saint Francis, nor the lukewarm patronage of Saint Ives and Saint Gertrude could save poor Pussy from black calumny