.'

'I certainly _did_ enter into conversation with her,' replied
Friskarina, plucking up a little spirit; 'for I asked her where she
lived, and why she was so thin and dirty.'

'I wonder,' said Glumdalkin, 'how you could bear to go near her.'

'But, one couldn't help it, you know,' said Friskarina, 'when she
looked so very wretched. Poor thing! when I asked her how it was she
was so thin, the tears came into her eyes, and she said, she had so
very little to eat. I asked her if her mistress never gave her any
cream? and--would you believe it?--she actually asked me what cream
was.'

'Why, you simple child,' said Glumdalkin, 'do you suppose _cottage_
cats ever taste such a thing? They think themselves lucky if they can
get a drop of skimmed milk now and then----' (Some people suspected,
but this is _quite_ between ourselves, that Glumdalkin, though she
boasted that she had never been outside the walls of the palace garden
in her life, knew more about the ways of cats in humble stations than
she chose to confess--her father, it was said, had married sadly
beneath his family.)

'I don't believe,' continued Friskarina, 'that _that_ poor cat ever
gets even skimmed milk; for she told me her mistress could not get
enough to eat herself, and that she hardly ever gave _her_ anything at
all; so that all she lives upon is a chance mouse, when she can catch
it, or the black beetles she finds on the floor at night. And when she
is thirsty, she goes to a gutter that runs by the side of the road,
and laps a little muddy water. Only fancy what a dreadful life to
lead. I had no notion that there was a cat in the world so badly off.
I really could not eat my dinner to-day, for thinking about it. It
seems so sad, to have all these nice things, all the great saucers of
cream that we have for breakfast, and these soft cushions to sleep
upon, and then to think of that poor cat, so near us, catching black
beetles (nasty things!) for her supper, and lapping out of the dirty
gutter; it makes me quite wretched.'

'Friskarina;' said Glumdalkin, rising from her velvet cushion, with a
great deal of majesty in her air, and curling her tail very solemnly
round her toes--'Friskarina, let us have no more of this nonsense, if
you please! I consider your behavior this morning, and your
conversation at present, utterly beneath the dignity of a cat of
condition. Remember the distinguished family from which you have
sprung, and that you have the hon