forelegs and thin, inconspicuous wings that couldn't be very practical, Maya thought. Oddest of all were his great hindlegs, which stuck up over his body like two jointed stilts. His sly, saucy expression was contradicted by the look of astonishment in his eyes, and you couldn't say there was any meanness in his eyes either. No, rather a lot of good humor.

"Well, mademoiselle," he said to Maya, evidently annoyed by her surprised expression, "never seen a grasshopper before? Or are you laying eggs?"

"The idea!" cried Maya in shocked accents. "It wouldn't occur to me. Even if I could, I wouldn't. It would be usurping the sacred duties of our queen. I wouldn't do such a foolish thing."

The grasshopper ducked his head and made such a funny face that Maya had to laugh out loud in spite of her chagrin.

"Mademoiselle," he began, then had to laugh himself, and said: "You're a case! You're a case!"

The fellow's behavior made Maya impatient.

"Why do you laugh?" she asked in a not altogether friendly tone. "You can't be serious expecting me to lay eggs, especially out here on the grass."

There was a snap. "Hoppety-hop," said the grasshopper, and was gone.

Maya was utterly nonplussed. Without the help of his wings he had swung himself up in the air in a tremendous curve. Foolhardiness bordering on madness, she thought.

But there he was again. From where, she couldn't tell, but there he was, beside her, on a leaf of her clover.

He looked her up and down, all round, before and behind.

"No," he said then, pertly, "you certainly can't lay eggs. You're not equipped for it. You haven't got a borer."

"What—borer?" Maya covered herself with her wings and turned so that the stranger could see nothing but her face.

"Borer, that's what I said.—Don't fall off your base, mademoiselle.—You're a wasp, aren't you?"

To be called a wasp! Nothing worse could happen to little Maya.

"I never!" she cried.

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