“I won’t bear it!” she exclaimed. “I’ll run away to the Fairies of the Air. I am sure they will be so pleased with my beauty that they will feed me, and I shall never need to work again! As for the diamond, why, it is just impossible for a little Fairy like me to make it!”
Then she peeped into a fountain to admire herself, and saw, alas! that the splendid green of her wings had faded, and the silver spots were dim. For, if Fairies have naughty thoughts, their wings always droop and their beauty fades. At this sight, little Butterfly wept aloud with vexation and shame.
“I suppose the old tyrant, our Queen, thinks that now I am so ugly, I’ll hide myself in the Green Cavern in the Island of Ceylon! But I’ll let her see that I do not care about her!” And, alas! as Butterfly spoke thus, the silver spots disappeared entirely, and her wings became a dirty brown.
Trembling with anger, the little one waved her wand, and called:—
“Hummingbird! Hummingbird!
Come nigh! Come nigh!
And carry me off
To the far Blue Sky!”
In an instant a tiny hummingbird, shining like a jewel, alighted at her feet. She sprang on his back, and away they flew to the golden clouds in the West where the Queen of the Air Fairies held her Court. And when the Queen and all her Fairies saw Butterfly’s dirty brown wings, they waved their wands and vanished. And little Butterfly was left alone in the Palace of the Air.
But such a beautiful palace as it was! The clouds hung around it like transparent curtains of opal. The floor was paved with a rainbow. Thousands of gorgeous birds fluttered in the sunlight, and a multitude of voices filled the place with sweet sounds. Butterfly, fatigued by her flight through the sky and lulled by the voices, lay down on a rosy cloud, and fell into a gentle slumber.