Miss Laura took her up in her arms, and going down to the kitchen, asked Mary to give her a saucer of her very sweetest milk for the best cat in the United States of America.
Malta got great praise for this, and I never knew of her catching a bird afterward.

She was well fed in the house, and had no need to hurt such harmless creatures.
She was very fond of her home, and never went far away, as Jim and I did.

Once, when Willie was going to spend a few weeks with a little friend who lived fifty miles from Fairport, he took it into his head that Malta should go with him.

His mother told him that cats did not like to go away from home; but he said he would be good to her, and begged so hard to take her, that at last his mother consented.
He had been a few days in this place, when he wrote home to say that Malta had run away.

She had seemed very unhappy, and though he had kept her with him all the time, she had acted as if she wanted to get away.
When the letter was read to Mr.Morris, he said, "Malta is on her way home.