They taught her all the pretty sports which they had practised among themselves; once more she flew across the meadows with the birds, fed on the fresh, clear honey of the bee, and played hide-and-seek with butterflies.
Sometimes the butterflies lifted her far up into the air. How do you suppose they contrived to do it, with their slender wings, which even the wind could break?
Minnie told them that, in her father's house stood a statue, with wings on the wrists and feet. This was Mercury, whom the Greeks in old times worshipped as one of their many gods.
Now, she thought the butterflies might make a little Mercury of her. No sooner had she said as much than a beautiful pair, spreading wings large enough for sails to her lily-leaf boat, floated through the sunshine to settle upon the little woman's shoulders. Then followed smaller ones, with blue, white, and yellow wings; and, fastening themselves to her ankles and wrists, up, up, they all flew together!
But the next day Minnie found her little friends creeping about with their wings sadly sprained. So she would not often let them repeat this experiment.
O, I should have to write a larger book than this to tell you what good times Minnie had with the butterflies; into what pleasant places they were always leading her; how gentle and playful they were, and how their wings were perfumed with the flowers they had lived among.
She loved to have them follow her when she walked, especially that little golden kind you have often seen in the meadows. Some followed, some fluttered on before, as if she were a little queen, and they her body-guard.
There were no angry voices now, no envious neighbors; no Master Squirrel came to repeat disagreeable stories. Instead of that stifled squirrel-hole in the elm, she had the sweet air of heaven about her now. Instead of that crowded yellow-bird's nest, where Minnie had felt in the way, she had now the wide meadow, with room enough in its soft, green lining, for herself and all her friends.
But, alas! Minnie was the one, this time, to cause trouble and discontent. Only to gratify her wilful temper, she did what she would have given half the world to undo afterwards. It was a little thing,--you would hardly call it wicked; and yet it grieved and drove away her gentle friends, and would have cost her own life, but for an accident. These little things make half the mischief in the world.