ght came into Friskarina's head. She began to
consider whether she _had_ done all the good she might have done, as
it was: and suddenly it struck her, that she had very often, indeed,
ate a great deal more dinner than she really wanted, just because it
happened to be nice; and she remembered, that once or twice old Bear,
the watch-dog, who was chained up in the yard, had said to her, how
glad he should be to have something more to eat; and yet it was very
odd, but it had never occurred to her, that she might so easily have
saved him a bone or two at her dinner time, and yet have had plenty
for herself too.

So poor little Friskarina hung her head down, and felt quite ashamed;
the tears came into her eyes. 'Poor Bear!' she said, 'I might have
helped you very often, if I had only thought about you. I'm afraid I
have been very selfish!'

And then she began to think, that perhaps it was rather unkind in her
not to go and look after poor old Glumdalkin, who was, no doubt, in no
very _happy_ mood. So, screwing up her courage as well as she could,
she trotted up stairs, and, finding that the princess was just
entering the drawing-room, she slipped in after her. The fire was
blazing gloriously; but, at first, Friskarina was quite unable to see
anything of her second cousin once removed, (I'm afraid Friskarina now
and then sincerely wished her removed altogether!) for though the fire
was bright, there were no candles in the room, and it was a very large
one, so that the further extremity of it was rather dark. So she began
looking round, for she could not imagine where the old cat could be
gone to: at last, quite at the far end, she thought she perceived some
black object behind one of the chairs, and, on going up to it, found
Glumdalkin, with her eyes closed, her head very erect, her tail curled
very tight round her toes, and her whole person apparently immovable,
except, now and then, an angry twitch at the end of her tail.

Friskarina saw plain enough that she was not asleep; so, as she really
felt rather sorry for her, she asked her if she did not feel cold,
sitting so far from the fire.

'I beg, Ma'am, you won't trouble yourself about me,' was the gracious
reply; 'if I chose to sit by the fire, I should do so: I suppose the
princess would not order me out!' this was said with such a strange
kind of hysterical laugh, that Friskarina thought she was going to
burst into a fit of crying.

'Come,' she said, kindly, 'don't