“By your fairy-like delicacy one can see that you couldn’t eat such things,” smiled the colonel.
“Mamma says she doesn’t know what keeps me alive. Half a dewdrop and a little bit of the nicest part of a rose-leaf often lasts me for a day. But to our list. Let’s see,—the Fireflies, Butterflies, Moths. The Bees must come, I suppose.”
“The Bees are a worthy family,” nodded the colonel.
“Yes, but dreadfully humdrum. They never talk about anything but honey and housekeeping.”
“Then there are the Bumble Bees.”
“Oh, I dote on them,” said Miss Katy-Did. “General Bumble is one of the most dashing, brilliant fellows of the day.”
“He’s shockingly fat!” said the colonel.
“Yes, he is a little stout,” nodded Miss Katy-Did, “but he is very elegant in his manners,—something soldierly and breezy about him.”
“If you invite the Bumble Bees, you must have the Hornets.”
“Ah, they are spiteful,—I detest them.”