“’My surmise proved correct.  I have never been more petted than I was by “Toady,” as the village boys had dubbed him.  My present guardian is foolish enough over me, goodness knows, but she has other ties, while “Toady” had nothing else to love, not even himself.  He could hardly believe his eyes at first when I jumped up on his knees and rubbed myself against his ugly face.  “Why, Kitty,” he said, “do you know you’re the first living thing that has ever come to me of its own accord.”  There were tears in his funny little red eyes as he said that.

“’I remained two years with “Toady,” and was very happy indeed.  Then he fell ill, and strange people came to the house, and I was neglected.  “Toady” liked me to come up and lie upon the bed, where he could stroke me with his long, thin hand, and at first I used to do this.  But a sick man is not the best of company, as you can imagine, and the atmosphere of a sick room not too healthy, so, all things considered, I felt it was time for me to make a fresh move.

“’I had some difficulty in getting away.  “Toady” was always asking for me, and they tried to keep me with him:  he seemed to lie easier when I was there.  I succeeded at length, however, and, once outside the door, I put sufficient distance between myself and the house to ensure my not being captured, for I knew “Toady” so long as he lived would never cease hoping to get me back.

“’Where to go, I did not know.  Two or three homes were offered me, but none of them quite suited me.  At one place, where I put up for a day, just to see how I liked it, there was a dog; and at another, which would otherwise have done admirably, they kept a baby.  Whatever you do, never stop at a house where they keep a baby.  If a child pulls your tail or ties a paper bag round your head, you can give it one for itself and nobody blames you.  “Well, serve you right,” they say to the yelling brat, “you shouldn’t tease the poor thing.”  But if you resent a baby’s holding you by the throat and trying to gouge out your eye with a wooden ladle, you are called a spiteful beast, and “shoo’d” all round the garden.  If people keep babies, they don’t keep me; that’s my rule.

“’After sampling some three or four families, I finally fixed upon a banker.  Offers more advantageous from a worldly point of view were open to me.  I could have gone to a public-house, where the victuals were simply unlimited, and where the back door was left open all night.  But about the banker’s (he was also a churchwarden, and his wife never smiled at anything less than a joke by the bishop) there was an atmosphere of solid respectability that I felt would be comforting to my nature.  My dear child, you will come across cynics who will sneer at respectability:  don’t you listen to them.  Respectability is its own reward—­and a very real and practical reward.  It may not bring you dainty dishes and soft beds, but it brings you something better and more lasting.  It brings you the consciousness that you are living the right life, that you are doing the right thing, that, so far as earthly ingenuity can fix it, you are going to the right place, and that other folks ain’t.  Don’t you ever let any one set you against respectability.  It’s the most satisfying thing I know of in this world—­and about the cheapest.