"Oh dear!" thought the little maid, diving still deeper into the light grass, "there's Olga calling me to take care of Roger while she gets his bread and milk ready. I don't see why she can't wait a minute till I rest. It's too hot now. Baby can do without his dinner for a minute, I should think,--just a minute or so. He won't mind. He 's glad to wait if only you give him Mamma's chain and don't take away her watch. Ye-es, Olga,--I 'll come--by and by." A big velvety humble-bee came, boom! against Betty's head, and got tangled in her hair. He shook himself free and went reeling on his way in quite a drunken fashion, thinking probably that was a very disagreeable variety of dandelion he had stumbled across,--quite too large and fluffy for comfort, though it was such a pretty yellow. Betty lazily raised her head and peered after him. "I wonder where you're going," she said, half aloud. The humble-bee veered about and came bouncing back in her direction again, and when he reached the little grass-heap in which she lay, stopped so suddenly that he went careering over in the most ridiculous fashion possible, and Betty laughed aloud. But to her amazement the humble-bee righted himself in no time at all, and then remarked in quite a dignified manner and with some asperity,-- "If I were a little girl with gilt hair and were n't doing what I ought, and if I had wondered where a body was going and the body had come back expressly to tell me, I think I 'd have the politeness not to laugh if the body happened to lose his balance and fall,--especially when the body was going to get up in less time than it would take me to wink,--I being only a little girl, and he being a most respected member of the Busy-bee Society. However, I suppose one must make allowances for the way in which children are brought up nowadays. When I was a little--" "Now, _please_ don't say, 'When I was a little girl,'--for you never were a little girl, you know," interrupted Betty, not intending to be saucy, but feeling rather provoked that a mere humble-bee should undertake to rebuke her. "Mamma always says, 'When I was a little girl,' and so does Aunt Louie, and so does everybody; and I 'm tired of hearing about it, so there!" The humble-bee gave his gorgeous waistcoat a pull which settled it more smoothly over his stout person, and remarked shortly,-- "In the first place, I was n't going to say, 'When I was a little girl.' I was going to say, 'When I was a little _leaner_,' but you snapped me up so. However, it's true, isn't it? Everybody was a little girl once, were n't she?--was n't they?--hem!--confusing weather for talking, very! And what is true one ought to be glad to hear, eh?" "But it is n't true that everybody was once a little girl; some were little boys. There!"