[“O Polly, a hundred ants!” cried little Dick with an absorbed face.]
“Yes, indeed, that’s nothing,” said Polly; “sometimes they had a thousand march off somewhere, wherever the big Queen Ant would tell them to go. Well, these hundred ran right around Brown Betty, and got her in the middle.
“‘Now, go and show her the long corridor,’ said the big Mother Ant.”
“You said she was the Queen Ant,” corrected Dick.
“Yes, so she was, and the Mother Ant too,” said Polly; “but I like that best, so I’m going to call her so. Well”—
“Polly,” said little Dick hastily, “I very much wish you’d call her Captain Ant.”
“Well, I will,” said Polly, bursting into a merry laugh, that made Mrs. Whitney smile too, a smile that went right down into Polly’s heart, and made her forget all about Jasper’s new book lying there on the floor. “Now she’s Captain Ant; we mustn’t forget that, Dicky.”
“We mustn’t forget that,” repeated Dick, in great satisfaction. “Now go on, Polly, do.”