"Aren't you going to look at Betsy's picture yourself?" Jimmy Rabbit asked him. "It's a good bit of work, if I do say so."
"Oh! I don't care about seeing it. It's nothing to me, you know," said Freddie carelessly. "But I hope Dusty Moth will be satisfied with it."
"Well, I won't go with you, to see if he[p. 101] is," Jimmy Rabbit told him. "I usually have a light lunch at this hour. So I'll meet you here at the duck pond after I come back from the cabbage patch."
They parted then. And shortly afterward Freddie Firefly dropped down beside Dusty Moth, who made no attempt to conceal his pleasure.
"At last!" he cried. "At last I am to behold the beautiful Betsy Butterfly's picture!... I do hope it's a good likeness!" he added as he began, with trembling hands, to unwrap the rhubarb covering from the portrait.
"It certainly is," Freddie Firefly assured him. "It was made by a friend of mine, who once painted a famous picture of old Mr. Crow."
While Freddie danced along the top of the fence, Dusty Moth carried the picture into the shade of an apple tree, out of the[p. 102] moonlight, so that he might see it more clearly.
A few moments later Freddie Firefly was both surprised and alarmed to hear a cry of anguish from the direction of the apple tree.
"What's the matter?" he called. "There's nothing wrong, I hope?"
But Dusty Moth made no reply.