"Little girl, why did you do that?" said the fairy, severely.
"Oh, what, please?" Bab was a brave child, but she did feel a little shaky and nohow just then.
"Brought the bad fairy Blackamè to creep in among us and eat up our butterflies."
And had Bab really the power to bring a fairy Blackamè over there when she thought it was only a splash of ink? And she looked with a sort of terror on the bad fairy Blackamè when she thought she had brought her, and could not send her away.
"Oh, fairy, fairy!" she cried, "do forgive me. But can that wretched little black splashy thing—for you really can't call it a splash—eat your butterflies when there are so many of you to fight for them, and they've got heaps and heaps of wings to fly away with?"
"But how can we manage that?" replied the fairy, sharply, "when we are too timid to fight and the butterflies are too brave to fly away."
"Well, that is inconvenient," sighed Bab; "but don't you think, since the butterflies are so brave—how I do like them for being so brave!—don't you think they might fight a little?"
"Butterflies fight!" screamed the fairy. "Were butterflies ever seen to fight since the first butterfly? What will you say next? I think you are a very disagreeable little girl. First you bring down Blackamè, and then you want to set all our dear pretty butterflies fighting."
"It was you who said they were so brave," murmured Bab, half penitent and half injured.
"And pray, is there any reason why I should not be permitted to say that butterflies are brave?" asked the fairy, with a sort of deadly politeness.