w, to visit the stars
with their mother. He loved the great sun very dearly now, because it
sent its rays down to warm the tiny eggs.

One day he awoke from his afternoon nap just in time to see a most
remarkable sight! What do you think was happening? One after another of
the small green eggs were breaking open, and out were crawling--what
_do_ you suppose! Little white butterflies? No, nothing of the
kind--Little green caterpillars were creeping out of each shell. Their
foster-father, as he had learned to call himself, could hardly believe
his own eyes. Yet there they were, wriggling and squirming, very much
like the young angleworms in the ground below.

"Well, well, well!" said he to himself, "who would ever dream that the
children of that beautiful creature would be mere caterpillars?" Strange
as it seemed to him, there was no denying the fact and his duty was to
teach them how to crawl about and how to nibble cabbage leaves. "Poor
things," he used to say as he moved among them, "you will never know the
world of beauty in which your mother lived, you will never be able to
soar aloft in the free air, your lives must be spent in creeping about
on a cabbage leaf and filling yourselves full of it each day. Poor
things! Poor things!"

The young caterpillars soon became so expert that they no longer needed
his care. Feeling very tired and sleepy, he one day decided to make for
himself a bed, or bag and go to sleep, not caring much whether or not
he ever awoke. He was soon softly wrapped from head to foot in the
curious covering he had made, and then came a long, long sleep of three
weeks or more. When at last he awakened, he began to work his head out
of his covering. Soon his whole body was free and he began to breathe
the fresh air and feel the warm sunshine. He was sure that something had
happened to him though he could not tell what. He turned his head this
way and that, and at last caught sight of his own sides. What do you
think he saw? Wings! Beautiful white wings! And his body was white, too!
The long sleep had changed him into a butterfly!

He began to slowly stretch his wings. They were so new he could hardly
believe that they were part of himself. The more he stretched them the
more beautiful they became, and soon they quivered and fluttered as
gracefully as did other butterfly wings. Just at this moment a strong,
fresh breeze swept over the garden, and before he had time to refuse,
the new butterfly was l