When she brought it with her into the schoolroom, Hamlet treated it in a scornful, sarcastic fashion that was worse than outrageous attack.

The cat was uncleanly, and was speedily banished back into the kitchen.

Mary's jealousy of Hamlet then grew apace, and with that jealousy, unfortunately, her secret appreciation of his splendours.
She could not help admitting to herself that he was the most attractive dog in the world.

She would look at him from under her spectacles when she was supposed to be reading and watch him as he rolled, kicking his legs in the air, or lay stretched out, his black wet nose against his paws, his eyes gleaming, his gaze fixed like the point of a dagger raised to strike, upon some trophy, or enemy, or spoil, or sat, solemn and pompous, like the Lord Mayor holding a meeting, as Jeremy said, up against his master's leg, square and solid as though he were cut out of wood, his peaked beard supercilious, his very ears at a patronising angle; or, as Mary loved best of all to see him, when he was simply childish, playing, as though he was still a new-found puppy, with pieces of paper or balls of string, rolling and choking, growling, purring, staggering and tumbling.

At such times, again and again, her impulse would be to go forward and applaud him, and then, the instinct that she would be checked by Jeremy stayed her.
She knew very well that Jeremy realised nothing of this.