butter, and explaining that she had not yet tasted any.

"So you looked into a buttercup to find out, eh?" said Daddy Longlegs.
"I'll have to do that, myself. Maybe I've always liked butter, too,
without knowing that I do."

"You can't tell till you try," Mrs. Ladybug remarked. "But you mustn't
be too sure. You may be disappointed. There's Betsy Butterfly! She
doesn't care for butter at all."

"Are you sure about that?" Daddy Longlegs inquired. "Really, I think you
must be mistaken, for I saw her with her face just _buried_ in butter
this very day."

At first Mrs. Ladybug looked at him in amazement. And then she grew very
angry.

"Betsy Butterfly deceived me!" she cried in a shrill voice. "She was
afraid that if I knew she ate butter she would have to share it with
me.... I'd like to know where she gets her butter," Mrs. Ladybug mused.

"She was standing on some of Farmer Green's, when I saw her," Daddy
Longlegs explained.

"Did she ask him for it?" Mrs. Ladybug demanded.

"I don't believe she did," he admitted. "I think she just took it."

A wicked gleam came into Mrs. Ladybug's eyes when she learned that. And
she threw up her hands, exclaiming, "She steals! Betsy Butterfly steals
butter! When the field people hear the news they won't think she's so
fine." And then Mrs. Ladybug turned to Daddy Longlegs once more and
demanded whether he knew of anything else that Betsy Butterfly was in
the habit of taking from Farmer Green.

"Eggs!" he replied promptly.

"Eggs!" Mrs. Ladybug repeated after him. "Betsy Butterfly steals butter
and eggs!"

And before Daddy Longlegs could stop her she had hurried away to spread
the news far and wide.

X

THE NIGHT WATCH

LITTLE Mrs. Ladybug stopped everybody she met in the meadow and related
how Betsy Butterfly was taking Farmer Green's butter--and his eggs,
too--without asking his permission.

"She's going to get some of us into trouble," Mrs. Ladybug informed her
neighbors. "Just as likely as not Farmer Green and his wife will think
others are stealing from them. Why, I went to the farmhouse to-day and
asked for a bit of butter. And what do you think? Mrs. Green pretended
not to hear me! I thought it was queer, at the time. But now I know
that she's angry with me. She must have missed some of her butter; and
she thinks I'm the guilty party." Mrs. Ladybug shook her finger at her
neighbors. "We'll have to do something to put a stop to Betsy
Butterfly's thieving