Once upon a time the animals who live away up North, in the cold Arctic regions, came together for a feast in celebration of their blessings¹. The bears, the wolves, the minks², the sables³, even the big, spluttery seals that swim in the icy water, were all on hand to make a great noise, singing and shouting and devouring⁴ the things that they all loved to eat.  
All were there except Mrs. Fox, and why she was not invited no one knew. Maybe Mr. Penguin⁵, who wrote the invitations, was responsible for the omission⁶, but at any rate it is a fact that the fox family was left out in the cold.
 
Of course, Mrs. Fox felt herself sorely slighted. She and her six children came near enough, however, to learn that after the celebration and the dance, which was to be held on the ice floor of the Bear palace, there was to be a great supper in Mrs. Bear's kitchen. It was to be a feast of the eggs of the eider-duck. A supper, needless to say, that any bear or fox would travel night and day to enjoy.
 
On the night of the feast Mrs. Fox crept quietly up to the bears' house.
 
Mrs. Bear and all the ladies were in the bedroom, brushing down their rich winter suits, and prinking away to look their best before going down to meet the other guests. And, of all things, they were gossiping about Mrs. Fox! Just because she wasn't there (as they thought), they were speaking of her in the most slighting terms. It seemed as if they were all talking at once; but Mrs. Fox, whose ear was close to the chimney, could hear Mrs. Wolf's deep voice distinctly.
 
"That old coat of Mrs. Fox's is the shabbiest I have ever seen," she was saying in her severest tone. "One would think that a woman of her build, slinky and queer as it is, would put on white every winter. I would wear white myself if I didn't think this handsome gray of mine an elegant thing the year round."
 
They all agreed that Mrs. Wolf was indeed very elegant, and that Mrs. Fox was very shabby. Little Miss Ermine, who, as all the world knows, has the finest white coat in the world, piped up shrill⁷ and cross:
 
"Right you are, Mrs. Wolf. White's the thing in winter, but only for those adapted to it. It scarcely becomes every one."
 
At this she made a great showing of her own dainty figure, cutting seve............