Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/96

 70 exactitude. The independence of character, the coldness of heart, the alternations of playfulness and reserve, "the courteous but temperate regard, granted on terms of absolute equality,—these things were understood and respected by one too wisely kind for intolerance. "Thus freely speaketh Montaigne concerning cats," and there is little to add to his words. The world is now so old that everything we would like to say has been said long ago by those who first had the opportunity.

Two proofs we find of Pussy's rapid progress in esteem. The French country houses built between the middle of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were all furnished with "chatières," little openings cut in the doors for the accommodation of the cat, who wandered in and out of the great chill tapestried rooms as her restless fancy prompted her. These chatières indicate a careful study of her convenience, yet, by the close of the seventeenth century, they had wholly disappeared;—a circumstance, says M. Havard, which points to but one conclusion. In her hundred years of pampered domesticity, the cat had accustomed mankind to wait upon her pleasure. There was no longer any need of creeping through a hole. If she wanted to come in or go out,—and cats are perpetually wanting to do one or the other,—somebody was always ready to get up and open the door.