if I'd show you a
picture of Betsy Butterfly you would stop pestering me about her."

"Don't worry about that!" Dusty Moth assured him bitterly. "I shall
never mention Betsy Butterfly's name again. I don't want to think of
her. But I'm afraid I can never, never get her face out of my mind.... I
know--" he added--"I know I shall see it in my dreams. And just think
how terrible it will be to wake at midday, out of a sound sleep, with
her dreadful face and form haunting me!"

Freddie Firefly couldn't help feeling sorry for the poor chap. But he
could think of nothing to do, except to show him Betsy's portrait once
more. So he started to raise the picture from the ground, where it still
lay face downward. And the moment Dusty Moth saw what he was about he
gave a frightful scream--and flew off into the night.

"He's a queer one!" Freddie Firefly mused. "Now, I've always thought
Betsy was a fine-looking----" Just then his eyes fell upon the picture
for the first time. And Freddie Firefly's mouth fell open in
astonishment.

So amazed was he by what he saw that he tumbled right over backwards.
And then, scrambling to his feet, he wrapped the rhubarb leaf hastily
around the picture and slung it across his back again.

"Jimmy Rabbit has made a terrible mistake!" he groaned, as he started
for the duck pond.

* * * * *

Back at the meeting place once more, Freddie Firefly rushed up to Jimmy
Rabbit in great excitement.

"Do you know what you did?" he cried. "You brought me the wrong picture.
And Dusty Moth has gone shrieking off into the darkness, he was so
disappointed. This is not Betsy Butterfly's picture! It's some
dreadful-looking caterpillar. And when I glanced at it just now, over
in the orchard, it sent a chill all through me."

For the time being Jimmy Rabbit said nothing. At first he had seemed
quite upset. But before Freddie had finished speaking he had begun to
smile. And then he unwrapped the picture once more and leaned it against
a stone, where the moon's rays fell squarely upon it.

"You're mistaken," he informed Freddie then. "This _is_ a picture of
Betsy Butterfly. I painted it myself; and I ought to know. As I
explained last night, I made it earlier in the summer; and as I said,
she has changed somewhat in the meantime. But it's a very good likeness
of her as she was once."

"You mean--" gasped Freddie Firefly--"you mean that Betsy Butterfly was
once an ugly caterpilla