"Why, George, you've only brought me a caterpillar!" I said not quite pleased.
"No, it isn't," replied George, "it's a glowworm. After the cricket match we went to supper at the squire's, and on the lawn there were hundreds of these pretty things, so I brought you one."
"But I thought a glowworm had fire in its tail?" said I.
"You are quite right," replied George. "It has; but then you can only see it in the dark, and there is the gas-lamp burning over us. Suppose we take it into the dark greenhouse and put it in a pot?"
I thanked George very much for his trouble in bringing me such a treasure, and we hastened to a sort of glass place we had built out over an extra room, and in which my mother placed all her favourite plants. We put the little creature on to a flower-pot, and true enough when it was left quite quiet it began to shine.
"What is that light for?" I asked George.
"I believe it is a lamp for it to see its food by in the dark as it crawls over the grass. And another thing, nightingales are fond of glowworms, and nightingales too must live, so you see they can easily spy them out, can't they?"
"I'm glad, George, you saved this one from the nightingale," I said. "Now it will shine here every night like a little fairy lamp, and when we give my party it will be of great use, won't it?"
George laughed at me, and said he thought the glowworm would have to grow a good deal larger before it could do that. Nurse now called me to bed, so after we had put some leaves close to the glowworm we left it shining brightly.
The next morning I ran to see if my glowworm was pretty or ugly by daylight, but it was gone!