A butterfly was lying on the table before him, all finished except for a spot on one wing; and dozens of other butterflies were waiting their turns on a bench by the wall; these last had no colors on their wings at all. The Painter of Butterflies touched up the wing before him with an orange-colored powder, and said: “Now you’ll do. Off with you!” The butterfly fluttered, rose in the air, and sailed out through the door. “You’re next,” said the Painter. Malkin put down his butterfly on the table, and Nibby laid down his cup of powder. “Aha!” said the Painter. “Let me look at that butterfly! Something queer about that butterfly! Wait a minute!” He put on a pair of thick shiny spectacles and bent down over the butterfly. “Aha!” he said. “I thought so! This isn’t a butterfly. I ought to know a butterfly when I see one. This is something else entirely. Did you ever see a butterfly with a pink sash?” He took off his spectacles and gave them to the gnomes, and they looked at the butterfly through the spectacles, one after the other. There, around the butterfly’s body, was a thread of pink ribbon, tied with a bow. When they took the spectacles off they couldn’t see it any longer. “Bless my soul, brother Nibby,” said Malkin, “I believe it’s----” “I believe it is, brother, I believe it is,” said Nibby. “I’ve seen her wear a pink sash. However did she get changed into a butterfly?” The little old Painter picked up the acorn cup which Nibby had brought, and looked into it. “Aha!” he said. “White and blue and brown. She must have had a white skin and blue eyes and brown hair. Wait a minute.” He poured the powder from the cup onto the table, and held his brush over it. “White, white, come up!” he said; and all the white powder flew up onto the brush. He painted the butterfly’s wings with this, so that they became white all over. “Blue, blue, come up!” he said, and all the blue powder flew up onto the brush. With this he painted a round blue eye on each wing. “Brown, brown, come up!” he said, and the brown powder flew up on to the brush. With this he painted brown streaks like hair on each wing. “Now,” he said, “fly!” The butterfly rose and flew around the room, and then settled down on Nibby’s shoulder. “That’s done,” said the Painter, “now we’d better go and see old Sappy the Owl about it.” He got up, and the two gnomes followed him out of the door, the butterfly coming along on Nibby’s shoulder. They came, after a while, to a great hollow oak tree in the woods, and the Painter stuck his head into a hole at the bottom of the tree and shouted up inside: “Sappy! Come down!” Then he stood up, and in a moment a large gray owl was standing in the opening at the bottom of the tree. “Here’s a butterfly with a pink sash,” said the Painter. “We’d better tell him, brother,” said Malkin, “about the Elf with the apple-seed coat, who brushed all the powder off the butterfly’s wings.”