It is worth telling,—­the advent of Bel and her bird in the up-stairs room in Leicester Place, and what came of it with Bartholomew.  Miss Blin believed very much in her cat with the apostolic name, though she had never tried his principles with a caged bird.  She had tutored him to refrain from meat and milk unless they were set down for him in his especial corner upon the hearth.  He took his airings on the window-ledge where the sun slanted in of a morning, beside the very brown paper parcel in which was wrapped the mutton chop for dinner; he never touched the cheese upon the table, though he knew the word “cheese” as well as if he could spell it, and would stand up tall on his hind paws to receive his morsel when he was told, even in a whisper, and without a movement, that he might come and have some.  He preferred his milk condensed in this way; he got very little of it in the fluid form, and did not think very highly of it when he did.  He knew what was good, Aunt Blin said.

He understood conversation; especially moral lectures and admonitions; Miss Bree had talked to him precisely as if he had a soul, for five years.  He knew when she was coming back at one o’clock to dinner, or at nine in the evening, by the ringing of the bells.  After she had told him so, he would be sitting at the door, watching for its opening, from the instant of their first sound until she came up-stairs.

When Aunt Blin thought over all this and told it to Bel, on their way down in the cars, she almost persuaded her niece and quite convinced herself, that Bartholomew could be dealt with on principles of honor and confidence.  They would not attempt to keep the cage out of his reach; that would be almost to keep it out of their own.  She would talk to Bartholomew.  She would show him the bird, and make him understand that they set great store by it, that it must not be meddled with on any account.  “Why, he never offers to touch my tame pigeon that hops in on the table to eat the crumbs!”

“But a pigeon is pretty big, Aunt Blin,” Bel answered, “and may be Bartholomew suspects that it is old and tough.  I am afraid about my tiny, tender little bird.”

Bel was charmed with Aunt Blin’s room, when she opened the blinds and drew up the colored shades, and let the street-light in until she could find her matches and light the gas.  It was just after dark when they reached Leicester Place.  The little lamp-lighter ran down out of the court with his ladder as they turned in.  There were two bright lanterns whose flames flared in the wind; one just opposite their windows, and one below at the livery stable.  There was a big livery stable at the bottom of the court, built right across the end; and there was litter about the doors, and horse odor in the air.  But that is not the very worst kind of city smell that might be, and putting up with that, the people who lived in Leicester Court had great counterbalancing advantages.  There was only one side to the place;