a butterfly.

She was poising herself for her first flight, the bright and lovely
Lady of the Sky. Now she spread her wings flat, as a fan is unfurled.
And now she had lifted them clear and uncovered her message. The
Butterfly Man watched her, hanging absorbed upon her every movement.
And he read, softly:

"_I must work
... while it is day_."

Lightly as a flower, a living and glorious flower, she lifted and
launched herself into the air, flew straight and sure for the outside
light, hung poised one gracious moment, and was gone.

He turned to me the sweetest, clearest eyes I have ever seen in a
mortal countenance, the eyes of a little child. His face had caught a
sort of secret beauty, that was never to leave it any more.

"Parson!" said the Butterfly Man, in a whisper that shook with the
beating of his heart behind it: "Parson! _Don't it beat hell?_"

I rocked on my toes. Then I flung my arms around him, with a jubilant
shout:

"It does! It does! Oh, Butterfly Man, by the grace and the glory and
the wonder of God, it beats hell!"

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the
Butterfly Man, by Marie Conway Oemler

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