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Updated: June 29, 2025
'It is too true, sighed Friskarina, 'I can do no good to the old woman and her sick daughter; but, with your leave, Cousin Glumdalkin, I can do something for the poor cat, and that will be better than nothing: if one can't do what one would, one ought to do what one can. And now, my dear good Cousin Glumdalkin, I want you to lend me a helping paw, if you please.
She considered, however, that on such a morning as that, Glumdalkin would be sure to be on the hearth-rug, with her nose as close to the fender as possible, not troubling her head in the least about the world out of doors. So, making a vigorous spring, Friskarina was soon half-way up the ivy-tree, shaking down a shower of white flakes every jump she made.
Not that she was asleep, though; and her bad humor was not much mended by hearing the princess, who was lying on her sofa, call Friskarina to her, in her most endearing accents: 'Her dear, good, darling little Friskarina. 'It's most uncommonly odd that she never calls for me, thought Glumdalkin.
She had a prodigious longing, sometimes, to jump over cousin Glum's great broad back, as she sat before the fire; but she knew that would never do, so she was prudent, and contented herself with scampering over the furniture; while Glumdalkin, pretending to be sound asleep all the time, would be watching her with one eye open the least bit in the world, and secretly wishing that Friskarina might be unlucky enough to dash down one of the princess's old china jars that stood under the table.
As Glumdalkin died without a will, Friskarina, being her nearest relation, of course, succeeded to her property, which chiefly consisted of that delightful soft bed, of yellow satin, which I told you about before, and which, together with her own, Friskarina immediately set aside for the use of the two oldest and most rheumatic cats in her establishment.
It was very very cold. Now there were few things Friskarina liked better than a gambol in the snow; so, as soon as she had finished her breakfast, and had warmed herself well at the fire, off she set, full drive, into the garden, pattering hither and thither, that she might have the pleasure of making as many footmarks as possible, and jumping up at the flakes that came tumbling down from the laurel-leaves.
Never was there such a merry little cat! At last the thought struck her the poor cottage cat did she like the snow, too? and Friskarina longed to know whether she could come out that morning: perhaps she meant to sit by the fire all day. By degrees, Friskarina recollected that she went to sleep the night before with a plan in her head.
Glumdalkin sat silent for some minutes, seemingly plunged in the most dismal meditations. 'Well, she said, at length, in a rather mollified tone, 'I have no doubt you would all miss me dreadfully; you, especially, Friskarina, as you are so young and giddy, and so little able to take care of yourself; we will see, I don't wish to do anything unkind by you
However, she did finish at last; and then, running up to Friskarina, called her her only friend her deliverer from starvation and said many other very affectionate things besides. But Friskarina cut them short, by begging her to go home without delay, for fear the gardener should find her, and hang her up to the apple-tree.
Friskarina gulphed down a rather sharp speech that was just at the end of her tongue, and went on with the recital of her adventures: 'I have certainly seen the poor cat; and the cottage, too, in which she lives O Glumdalkin! such a place it is, you never saw anything like it; there was not a bit of fire on the hearth, and in one corner there lay a woman on a heap of straw, with an old rug over her.
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