bursting petards.
The artillery of the prickly furze played on both sides of the
throne as the nations of flies approached to pay their homage to the
queen.

To the cries of vivat, uttered with enthusiasm, Piccolissima replied
by inclining her sceptre; a golden rain fell from it, and was
eagerly gathered up by the surrounding crowds of humming courtiers,
whose shouts and acclamations filled the air.

The young sovereign then had to endure a long and grave discourse
from a fat drone bee who did not understand himself.

Ere long the little queen learned that her empire was in danger.
Dreadful enemies menaced the frontiers. "They are spiders," said the
flies. "They are the larvae of the rose bushes," said the grubs.
"They are the ichneumons," cried a crowd of winged insects.

Every one accused some other one. Piccolissima did not know what to
understand, but she hastened to arm herself. Two bees, as her body
guard, placed upon her head for helmet a flower of the snapdragon.
Two wasps, redoubtable hussars, brought her for a shield a piece of
the gold bronze wing shell of a beetle.

At last, she extended her hand to seize her lance, when a clap of
thunder shook the lily, dispersed the court, and the army, and
Piccolissima awoke, and found herself in the hands of her mother,
Mrs. Thomas Thumb, who said, very gently, "Tell me, dear little one,
are you not very weary?"

"It is strange," said Mr. Tom Thumb, some months after, "that I
always find now my ball of soap in its right place."

"It is because Piccolissima no longer rolls it into the corners for a
plaything," replied Mrs. Tom Thumb. "The little creature improves--grows
really intelligent."

"I am glad of it," said, a little while afterwards, one of the elder
sisters of the miniature woman; "I am no longer obliged to hunt from
place to place for my thimble and my scissors they are now always in
my work box."

"The reason is, Piccolissima does not now make a well of your
thimble, nor a spade of your scissors," answered her brother; "she
has become tiresome; she no longer frisks around me when I return
home; she has no longer any droll fancies which once amused me so
much; she is now a genuine doll; I really believe that this minikin
is putting on airs."

"Hold your peace, Monsieur," answered the busy chambermaid, in a
scolding tone, while she cleaned the runnels of a chair, upon which the
feet of the young man had left a good portion of the soil of the garde