"I'm afraid not," Betsy told her.

"I'd like to try, myself," Mrs. Ladybug exclaimed eagerly. "But I don't
know how."

"It's simple enough," Betsy Butterfly replied. "You just look into a
buttercup blossom.

"And if it makes your face yellow, then you're fond of butter--whether
you ever had any or not."

So Mrs. Ladybug perched herself on a big blossom and peered earnestly
into its cup.

"Is my face yellow?" she asked Betsy.

"I do believe it is!" Betsy Butterfly cried.

And Mrs. Ladybug looked much pleased.

"I've always known I had refined tastes," she remarked with a lofty air.
"And now I'd like to sample a bit of butter; but I don't know where to
find any."

"Butter? They make it at the farmhouse," Betsy informed her.

"Then perhaps Farmer Green's wife will let me have a little," Mrs.
Ladybug said hopefully. "I'll go over to the farmhouse at once.... It's
too bad you don't like butter, too," she added.

But secretly she was delighted that Betsy Butterfly had looked into a
buttercup in vain.

IX

UNEXPECTED NEWS

LITTLE Mrs. Ladybug had a disappointment when she reached the farmhouse.
She found, to her dismay, that she couldn't get inside it; for wire
screens blocked her way through both doors and windows. And nobody paid
the slightest attention to her when she stopped at the buttery window
and asked if she couldn't please have a bit of butter.

There was plenty of golden butter right there in plain sight, since it
happened to be churning day. And Farmer Green's wife, with her sleeves
rolled above her elbows, was working busily on the other side of the
window screen.

"I should think she might easily spare me a small sample!" Mrs. Ladybug
cried at last. "I'm afraid Farmer Green's wife is stingy."

Mrs. Ladybug hoped that Johnnie Green's mother would hear her remark.
But she didn't. And in the end Mrs. Ladybug had to fly away with her
longing for butter still unsatisfied.

Meanwhile Betsy Butterfly had been amusing herself in the meadow to her
heart's content. To tell the truth, it was rather a relief to be rid of
Mrs. Ladybug's society for so long a time. And Betsy hoped that Mrs.
Ladybug's errand to the farmhouse would keep that busybody engaged for
the rest of the day.

Now, after she left the farmhouse Mrs. Ladybug set out to find Betsy
Butterfly again. But meeting Daddy Longlegs near the stone wall, she
stopped to gossip with him, telling him how she had learned that she
liked