MISS’ BUT PERF LY.

She slid him dexterously from the pink petals into a palm that was now,
alas! neither pink nor plump, and carried him back to the fire. Sinking down
upon her ottoman, as the insect poised upon her uplifted hand she held to him
a drop of honey upon the tip of a pearl paper-knife.

“ Hush! hush!” she breathed to the impatient spectators. “He must get
warm before he gets hungry. That’s the way with all teeny-weeny things, you
know.”

As the warmth of the withered palm passed into the downy body, the odd
pet raised his wings and waved them gently in the firelight; successive thrills
shook his frame; the antennse vibrated, and we could see the proboscis undo
itself, coil after coil, and dip into the honey drop.

 

‘“( pLEASE, MISS BUTTERFLY, SING ‘SAID I, SAID I.’”’

“That is the most comical exhibition I ever saw,” ejaculated one of the
mothers. “How did you tame it, Betty?”

“ Tt did itself ;” checking the gurgle lest it should jar her protégé. “TI found
him outside, hanging to the window-sill for dear life, on Thanksgiving Day.
He had come to look for the jardiniére that stood there all summer, I suppose.
So I took him in, and warmed him, and fed him, and have kept him in the fernery
ever since. You wouldn’t believe how much company he is forme. On sunny