"A thousand spiders
All weaving in a row,
Can weave you a ladder
To fit your little toe."
"Can they, indeed?" cried Pet; "and are you acquainted with the spiders?"
"I should think so, indeed," said the butterfly; "I am engaged to be married to a spider; I have been engaged ever since I was a caterpillar."
"Well, just ask them to be so good!" said Pet, and away flew the butterfly, coming back in a moment with a whole cloud of spiders following her.
"Be as quick as you can, please, lest my nurses should come back from dinner," said Pet, as the spiders worked away. "Fortunately they have all good appetites, and cannot bear to leave table without their six helpings of pudding."
The ladder being finished, Pet tripped down it into the garden, where she was hidden at once in a wilderness of roses, out of which she made her way through a wood, and across a stream quite far into the open country of her kingdom.
She was running very fast, with her head down, when she heard a step following her, and a voice speaking to her, and looking round, saw a very extraordinary person indeed. He was very tall and all made of loose, clanking bones; he carried a scythe in one hand, and an hourglass in the other, and he had a pleasant voice, which made Pet not so much afraid of him as she otherwise might have been.
"It is no use trying to run away from me," said this person. "Besides, I wish to do you a good turn. My name is Time."
Pet dropped a trembling courtesy.
"You need not be afraid of me," continued the stranger, "as you have never yet abused me. It is only those who are trying to kill me who have cause to fear me."