This was the place she occupied, whenever her master was writing alone.

Passing one day through a suburban neighbourhood, on his round of visits, the young surgeon had been attracted by a crowd in a by-street.

He had rescued his present companion from starvation in a locked-up house, the barbarous inhabitants of which had gone away for a holiday, and had forgotten the cat.

When Ovid took the poor creature home with him in his carriage, popular feeling decided that the unknown gentleman was "a rum 'un." From that moment, this fortunate little member of a brutally-slandered race attached herself to her new friend, and to that friend only.

If Ovid had owned the truth, he must have acknowledged that her company was a relief to him, in the present state of his mind.
When a man's flagging purpose is in want of a stimulant, the most trifling change in the circumstances of the moment often applies the animating influence.