"
Wendy is cat-like in some of her habits, prefers fish to meat, sleeps
all day in wet weather but is lively towards night, is very particular
about her toilet and washes her face with moistened paws passed over
her ears. She is very sensitive to the weather, loves the sun, lying
stretched at full length on the hot gravel so that she can enjoy the
comforting warmth to her little body. She is wretched in a
thunderstorm, shivering and taking refuge beneath a table or sofa;
then she comes to me for sympathy, and lies on my knee, covered with a
rug or a newspaper, but after a bad storm she is not herself for many
hours. Anyone who does not know her may think the moods I have
detailed an impossible category, but there is not one which we have
not personally witnessed again and again, and no one can see her
loving caresses of my wife without being assured of the soul that
animates her mind and body.
Wendy is never allowed to "sit in damp clothes," or even with feet wet
with rain or dew, and looks very reproachful if not attended to at
once with a rough towel on coming indoors. "Why _don't_ you dry me?"
is exactly the expression her looks convey. She has a lined basket, on
four short legs to keep her from draughts when sleeping, but she is
often uneasy alone at night, evidently "seeing things," and, in
Worcestershire language, finding it "unked," so she is now always
allowed a night-light.
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