She was poising herself for her first flight, the bright and lovely Lady of the Sky. Now she spread her wings flat, as a fan is unfurled. And now she had lifted them clear and uncovered her message. The Butterfly Man watched her, hanging absorbed upon her every movement. And he read, softly: "_I must work ... while it is day_." Lightly as a flower, a living and glorious flower, she lifted and launched herself into the air, flew straight and sure for the outside light, hung poised one gracious moment, and was gone. He turned to me the sweetest, clearest eyes I have ever seen in a mortal countenance, the eyes of a little child. His face had caught a sort of secret beauty, that was never to leave it any more. "Parson!" said the Butterfly Man, in a whisper that shook with the beating of his heart behind it: "Parson! _Don't it beat hell?_" I rocked on my toes. Then I flung my arms around him, with a jubilant shout: "It does! It does! Oh, Butterfly Man, by the grace and the glory and the wonder of God, it beats hell!" THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man, by Marie Conway Oemler