"It is lovely," she said at last. "But, cuckoo, I'm just thinking—how shall I possibly be able to sit down without crushing ever so many?"
"Bless you, you needn't trouble about that," said the cuckoo; "the butterflies are quite able to take care of themselves. You don't suppose you are the first little girl they have ever made a dress for?"
Griselda said no more, but followed the cuckoo, walking rather "gingerly," notwithstanding his assurances that the butterflies could take care of themselves. At last the cuckoo stopped, in front of a sort of banked-up terrace, in the centre of which grew a strange-looking plant with large, smooth, spreading-out leaves, and on the two topmost leaves, their splendid wings glittering in the sunshine, sat two magnificent butterflies.
They were many times larger than any Griselda had yet seen; in fact, the cuckoo himself looked rather small beside them, and they were so beautiful that Griselda felt quite over-awed. You could not have said what colour they were, for at the faintest movement they seemed to change into new colours, each more exquisite than the last. Perhaps I could best give you an idea of them by saying that they were like living rainbows.
"Are those the king and queen?" asked Griselda in a whisper.
"Yes," said the cuckoo. "Do you admire them?"
"I should rather think I did," said Griselda. "But, cuckoo, do they never do anything but lie there in the sunshine?"
"Oh, you silly girl," exclaimed the cuckoo, "always jumping at conclusions. No, indeed, that is not how they manage things in butterfly-land. The king and queen have worked harder than any other butterflies. They are chosen every now and then, out of
all the others, as being the most industrious and the cleverest of all the world-flower-painters, and then they are allowed to rest, and are fed on the finest essences, so that they grow as splendid as you see. But even now they are not idle; they superintend all the work that is done, and choose all the new colours."
"Dear me!" said Griselda, under her breath, "how clever they must be."