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gain, doubtless a thorough repentant for the wrong it had done. There has been no contention in the family since." It must be a very difficult thing for a cat, when a tame bird is within her reach, to resist the temptation to make a dinner from it. But there are not wanting instances in which this disposition has been entirely overcome. More than this: a cat has been known to become the protector of a bird, when it was in danger. A lady had a tame canary, which she was in the habit of letting out of its cage every day. One morning, as it was picking crumbs of bread off the carpet, her cat, who had always before showed the bird the utmost kindness, seized it suddenly, and jumped with it in her mouth upon a table. The lady was much alarmed for the fate of her favorite; but on turning about, she instantly perceived the cause. The door had been left open, and another cat, a stranger, had just come into the room! After the lady turned out the neighbor, her own cat came down from the table, and dropped the bird, without doing it the smallest injury. The following story was told me by my friend Dr. Alcott: A cat, in Northborough, Mass., with three very young kittens, having been removed to Shrewsbury, a distance of about four miles, continued to elude the vigilance of her mistress, and, during the hours of sleep, to transport these three kittens to their old mansion in Northborough. Here is a story about a cat who was for some time supposed to be a musical ghost: A family residing a few miles from Aberdeen, Scotland--so says the Aberdeen Herald--and at the time consisting of females, were recently thrown for one or two successive nights into no small consternation, by the unaccountable circumstance of a piano being set a strumming about midnight, after all the inmates of the house were in bed. The first night the lady of the house rose when she heard the unseasonable sounds, thinking some member of the family had set about "practicing her music" over night. She went cautiously to the room door, which she found shut; but although she heard the tones of the instrument when her hand was upon the handle of the door, on entering she was astonished to find no one in the room. The piano was indeed open, as it was generally, for a young girl to practice when she had a mind. But where was the midnight musician? The room was searched, but to no purpose--there was no musician visible. Next night the same sounds were heard, and a se
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