Beffa settled down comfortably 128 "The Princess is lost!" 146 THE NAMES OF THE BEES As all the bees of this story are Italian bees, they all, except one, have Italian names. And they should really be spoken as the Italians speak them. Besides, they are prettier that way. Therefore, a list of them, with the proper way to pronounce them, is given here. _Nuova_ (noo-o'va) _Uno_ (oo'no) _Due_ (doo'ay) _Tre_ (tray) _Saggia_ (saj'jia) _Mela_ (may'la) _Cera_ (chay'ra) _Fessa_ (fess'sa) _Aria_ (ah'ri-a) _Principessa_ (prin-chee-pess'sa) _Lotta_ (lawt'ta) _NUOVA_ CHAPTER I _Nuova Appears_ Nuova seemed to be gradually awakening. It would have seemed that way to any one who could have seen her just at this moment, and it seemed that way to Nuova herself. It was just as if one were in a comfortable, warm bed, and began to be conscious of a faint light outside and of soft voices and of other subdued sounds. The light and sounds grow stronger and louder, until, with a start, one is really awake, and sees that the light is the sunlight of a beautiful morning coming in at the curtained window, and recognizes the sounds to be those of the household already busy with a new day's work. It was, indeed, an awakening for Nuova; but it was more. It was the beginning of a new life for her. Until now she had been in a sort of pollywog stage for a bee--a stage in which she had no legs nor wings, and in which she could do nothing for herself at all, not even as much as a pollywog can--and had lain all the time in a long, narrow, six-walled, waxen cell that was bed and room all in one. That is, we might say, she had always so far in her life been in bed. For when she was born in her cell, she was just a tiny white thing, without wings or legs, blind, and quite helpless. Really about all she could do was to squirm a little in her horizontal cell, and keep opening her mouth when she was hungry to let somebody know she must be fed. She was immediately taken care of, however, by the nurse bees who kept near the nursery cells all the time except when they had to go to the pantry cells for more food for the babies. This food was flower nectar and pollen that had been brought into the hive by the active forager bees and stored in the pantry cells. The nurses made a sort of very good and nutritious jelly out of it which made Nuova grow very fast.