'What!' interrupted Glumdalkin, rousing herself up, her eyes flashing fire, and her whiskers standing on end, 'do you mean to say, that you—a cat descended from such an honorable and distinguished family as ours—one of the most ancient in Catland—that you actually demeaned yourself so far as to enter into conversation with a filthy, beggarly wretch, crawling out of a miserable cottage? Friskarina, on the honor of a cat, I am ashamed of you.'
'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 honor to belong to the household of the princess—so, pray, let me hear no more of making acquaintances among the vulgar cats of the village; you will be a disgrace to the court!'
Friskarina shrugged her shoulders, and replied, in rather an under-tone, 'that she really did not see anything disgraceful in being sorry for the unfortunate——' to which Glumdalkin made no answer. She seemed to be seized with a violent fit of cleanliness, and began washing and biting her right paw with extraordinary vehemence.
Just then, the entrance of Grandmagnificolowsky, and three or four more of the pages, with the princess's supper, put an end to the conversation. A fine gold dish, containing several dainty morsels, which the princess had carved with her own royal hands, was put down upon the velvet cushion, and Glumdalkin did them full justice.
When supper was over, two of the maids of honor carried the two cats to their beds, where we will leave them for the night, in pretty little baskets lined with yellow satin, and made so delightfully soft and warm, that it almost made one go to sleep only to look at them. Nevertheless, Friskarina lay awake a whole quarter of an hour, turning over a plan in her little head, that she meant to try and bring to pass the next day, if possible.