time, however, and returned to his perch with a
flourish, leaving the wasp to go on and begin dancing up the wall of
the house till she came to the open window. Here she vanished within.

The sunlight sat on the floor of the room inside, and the baby sat in
the sunlight; and the wasp, apparently still half-awake, went, or,
rather, nearly tumbled, and sat beside the baby.

They made an odd picture there--the golden sun, the sunny,
golden-headed baby, and that silent, yellow she-devil, crawling,
crawling, crawling, with her narrow wings gleaming like gems.

Then the child put out her chubby hand to seize that bright-yellow
object--how was she to know that it was the yellow signal of danger in
the insect world that she saw? And, of course, being a baby, she was
going to stuff it into her mouth. But Fate had use for that
wasp--perhaps for that baby. Wherefore there was a little scream, a
pair of woman's arms swept down and whisked that baby into the air, and
a high-heeled shoe whisked the astonished wasp into a corner. Here she
swore savagely, vibrating her head with tremendous speed in the
process, rose heavily and menacingly, made to fly out, hit the upper
window, which was shut, and which she could not see, but felt, and fell
to the floor again, where she apparently had brain-fever, buzzing round
and round on her back like a top the while.

And then, rising suddenly, the queen flew away, hitting nothing in the
process, but getting through the lower and open part of the window.
She seemed anxious to make sure of not getting into the house again.
She flew right away, rising high to top the garden hedge, and dropping
low on the far side, to buzz and poke about in and out, up along the
hedge-bank that bordered the hayfield.

She flew as one looking for something, and every insect in her way took
jolly good care--in the shape of scintillating streaks and dashes--to
get out of it. The mere sight of that yellow-banded cuirass shining in
the sun was apparently quite enough for them--most of them, anyway. As
a matter of fact, she was looking for a site for a city. She had
ambition, and would found her a city, a city of her very own, with
generous streets at right angles, on the American plan; and she would
be queen of it. It was a big idea, and we should have said an
impossible one, seeing that at that moment she was the city and its
population and its queen all rolled into one, so to speak.
Queen-wasps, however, al