The fine Big Dragon-Fly lighted beside her. "How are your wings?" said he.
"Almost dry," she answered joyfully, and she quivered them a little to show him how handsome they were.
"Well," said he. "I'll tell you the secret now, and of course you will never speak of it. I saw you talking with a Virgin Dragon-Fly. He may be all right, but he isn't really in our set, you know, and you'd better not have anything to do with him."
"Thank you," she said. "I won't." She thought it very kind in him to tell her.
He soon flew away, and, as she took her first flight into the air, a second Big Dragon-Fly overtook her. "I'll tell you a secret," said he, "if you will never tell."
"I won't," said she.
"I saw you talking to a Virgin Dragon-Fly a while ago. You may have noticed that he folded his wings over his back. The Big Dragon-Flies never do this, and you must never be seen with yours so."
"Thank you," she said. "I won't. But when they were drying I had to hold them in that way."
"Of course," said he. "We all do things then that we wouldn't afterward."
Before long she began egg-laying, flying low enough to touch her body to the water now and then and drop a single egg. This egg always sank at once to the bottom, and she took no more care of it.