e game laws, the friends parted. Bear laid himself
down to sleep in his kennel, and Friskarina scampered off into the
garden, to watch for Tibb's descent over the wall.

Punctually as the great bell of the palace rung, Tibb's ears appeared
among the top leaves of the ivy, and in a second she was at her
benefactress's side, looking so much less miserable than she did at
first, that it quite rejoiced Friskarina to look at her.

And now the house door opened, and out came a page, carrying a large
dish full of chicken bones, slices of meat, pieces of fish, and such
like delicate morsels, and closely followed by Mrs. Glumdalkin, making
such a clamorous mewing that one would have thought she had had no
breakfast.

Tibb, luckily, was hidden by a low bush; or I would not answer for it
that Glumdalkin would not have flown at her. However, she was too much
taken up with her dinner just then to look about her; for seeing a
beautiful piece of cold sole among the bits on the dish, and being
dreadfully afraid that Friskarina might take a fancy to it, she seized
upon it, and swallowed such a great piece whole, that the back-bone
stuck in her throat, and she could neither get it up nor down. She
coughed--she gasped--but there the bone stuck,--she coughed again,
quite convulsively, still the bone remained immovable; Friskarina, who
was at a little distance, grew very much alarmed, and running up to
her, thumped her on the back; but all in vain, her struggles became
absolutely frightful to witness; she kicked, she groaned--she started
to her feet, and ran, in an agony, like a mad thing, twice round the
grass, shrieking with pain; at length, sinking down, completely
exhausted, she stretched out her limbs, quite stiff, and giving a
fearful groan, breathed her last!

Friskarina, exceedingly terrified, ran behind the bushes to call Tibb
to her assistance, for she did not know, at first, that Glumdalkin was
really dead: but what was her astonishment to find Tibb gone, and in
the place where she had left her, an odd looking old lady, in a red
satin petticoat, trimmed with gold fringe, a gray cloak, a hat with a
very high crown, and she carried in her hand a long ebony stick, with
a queer silver head to it.

'Come hither, pretty Friskarina!' cried the old lady; and stooping
down, she patted her back, saying, 'So you were going to save your
own dinner for me, you good little creature.' Friskarina looked at her
with the utmost amazement; an