Mr. Cricket Frog bowed gallantly, with his hand on his heart.
And Mrs. Ladybug went away without guessing that he had himself played dead because he had been in terror of her.
"What a brave gentleman he is!" Mrs. Ladybug murmured.
XVIII
A MYSTERY
There was one thing that Mrs. Ladybug dreaded more than any other. That was—fire. The slightest whiff of smoke sent her into a flutter of alarm. The sight of a blaze made her almost frantic.
Perhaps Mrs. Ladybug's neighbors—more than she—were to be blamed for her fear. Some of them had an unkind way of frightening her. When they found her a bit too prying with her countless questions about this, that, and the other matter that did not concern her, they said to her:
"Aren't you worried, Mrs. Ladybug? What if your house were on fire? Wouldn't your children burn?"
Such questions never failed to send Mrs. Ladybug hurrying away.
After a while people began to wonder where Mrs. Ladybug went when she dashed away like that. Nobody seemed to know where she lived. They supposed that she must fly to her home, wherever it was.