Mrs. Ladybug wished that she hadn't come to the vegetable garden to see the person who called herself Mrs. Ladybug's cousin. She wasn't at all the sort of relation that Mrs. Ladybug cared to have.
Although the stranger in yellow was most agreeable, somehow Mrs. Ladybug disliked her exceedingly. And strange to say, Mrs. Ladybug couldn't have told exactly what it was in her cousin that displeased her. It wasn't alone the yellow gown that the new cousin wore. Nor her simpering smile. Nor her trifling manner. It was something else—something that made Mrs. Ladybug feel that she was not to be trusted.
"I must hurry back to the orchard," Mrs. Ladybug announced. "There's work waiting for me there. I really ought not to have left it to come to see you."
"Don't take your work so seriously!" her cousin advised her. "You ought to take more time for amusement. I hope you'll come to see me often."
Mrs. Ladybug's opinion of the stranger sank even lower.
"If some of us weren't earnest about our work the rest of the world would have a sorry time," she declared. "I may as well tell you that I shall not be able to call on you again. I shall be too busy. And there's no use of my urging you to come to see me, because of course you have your work to do too."
"Oh, naturally!" said Mrs. Ladybug's cousin with an odd smile. "Still, I could leave it once in a while to make a cousinly call."
"It won't be necessary," Mrs. Ladybug told her. "If I need you, I'll send for you." And she said to herself grimly, under her breath, "She'll never hear from me."
"If I can help you at any time, don't fail to let me know," the cousin told Mrs. Ladybug. "Doubtless I could be of some service, though I'd always rather work on vines—squash and pumpkin preferred."
Mrs. Ladybug thanked her. "I shouldn't want her helping me," she thought. "I'll warrant she's so careless that she would do more harm than good." And Mrs. Ladybug looked at the vine on which they were standing.