e than a little stick for
_her_ to get it on its legs again; it was as much as she could do, with
both arms, to roll the heavy thing over; and all the while she was
talking to it, half-scolding and half-comforting, as a nurse might do
with a child that had fallen down.

"There, there! You needn't cry so much about it; you're not killed
yet--though if you were, you couldn't cry, you know, and so it's a
general rule against crying, my dear! And how did you come to tumble
over? But I can see well enough how it was,--I needn't ask you
that,--walking over sand-pits with your chin in the air, as usual. Of
course if you go among sand-pits like that, you must expect to tumble;
you should look."

The beetle murmured something that sounded like "I _did_ look," and
Sylvie went on again:

"But I know you didn't! You never do! You always walk with your chin
up--you're so dreadfully conceited. Well, let's see how many legs are
broken this time. Why, none of them, I declare! though that's certainly
more than you deserve. And what's the good of having six legs, my dear,
if you can only kick them all about in the air when you tumble? Legs
are meant to walk with, you know. Now, don't be cross about it, and
don't begin putting out your wings yet; I've some more to say. Go down
to the frog that lives behind that buttercup--give him my
compliments--Sylvie's compliments--can you say 'compliments?'"

The beetle tried, and, I suppose, succeeded.

"Yes, that's right. And tell him he's to give you some of that salve I
left with him yesterday. And you'd better get him to rub it in for you;
he's got rather cold hands, but you mustn't mind that."

I think the beetle must have shuddered at this idea, for Sylvie went on
in a graver tone:

"Now, you needn't pretend to be so particular as all that, as if you
were too grand to be rubbed by a frog. The fact is, you ought to be
very much obliged to him. Suppose you could get nobody but a toad to do
it, how would you like that?"

There was a little pause, and then Sylvie added:

"Now you may go. Be a good beetle, and don't keep your chin in the
air."

And then began one of those performances of humming, and whizzing, and
restless banging about, such as a beetle indulges in when it has
decided on flying, but hasn't quite made up its mind which way to go.
At last, in one of its awkward zigzags, it managed to fly right into my
face, and by the time I had recovered from the shock, the little fairy