“I do,” said Sir Arthur; “that is, when I say a bijou, I mean—of course—a picture.”

“The inference is so plain,” said Miss Candituft, and she[Pg 72] looked in that wild moment at the flushed Agatha as though she could have bitten her bold, red cheek.

[Pg 72]

“Wonderful creatures, bees!” cried Hodmadod. “Only to think that such little things should make all the wax candles!” There was a pause, when the modest baronet asked—“They do make all the wax candles, eh? don’t they?”

“Make everything in wax,” said Basil. “Wonderfully arranged, sir. The white bees make wax; and the black bees—the nigger bees—make pitch.”

“Very well; very good; but no—I can’t quite believe that. Still, it is wonderful. And Miss Carraways, permit me to ask”—said Hodmadod—“do your labourers here work all the year round?”

“Not all the year, Sir Arthur,” answered the smiling Bessy.

“Ha! I see; the bees have a recess. Ha! ha! They’re like us in Parliament,” said Hodmadod. “Ha! ha!”

“Oh, very like you in Parliament,” cried the cool, cutting Miss Candituft.

“That is, when I say that bees are like members of Parliament, I don’t mean”—explained the logical Hodmadod—“I don’t mean that members of Parliament make wax candles, you know.”

“No, no, no,” cried Carraways with a laugh; and the company, to be relieved, would see a joke, and laughed most heartily; Hodmadod still laughing loudest.

“But we are not the only bee-keepers,” said Mrs. Carraways. “We have what we call our honey-feasts. And you should only see Bessy’s silver bees.”

“Silver bees! Well, that is strange. Now I call it curious”—cried Hodmadod—“but on the road, I did see a silver bee settled—when I say settled, of course I mean buckled—on the throat of a nice little girl. Wasn’t she, Miss Candituft?”

“A very pretty, fair thing with flaxen hair,” remarked Miss Candituft.

“That’s Jenny White. She’s the silver bee of this year; you see, it’s a whim of our Bessy’s”—Mrs. Carraways would talk, regardless of Bessy’s looks—“to give prizes every year to[Pg 73] the folks hereabout whose hives weigh most honey. Besides these prizes, there’s a silver bee to be worn on 

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