outdoors in August, I 'd like to know when you can."

"Allow me to inform you, my dear child, that it isn't August at all;
and if you had half an eye you 'd see it, let alone feel it. Do these
leaves look as if it were August?" and he pointed to a clump of trees
whose foliage shone red and yellow in the sunlight.

Betty started. "Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "How came they to
change so early?"

"It _is n't_ early," explained Mr. Bombus. "It's the last of
October,--even later,--and keeps getting more so every minute."

"But," insisted Betty, "it was August when I first saw you, a few hours
ago, and--"

"Yes, _then_ it was August," assented Mr. Bombus; "but we 've got
beyond that. We 're in By-and-by. Did n't you hear your mother say it
would be October by and by, and it _is_ October. Time is jogging on,
back there in the world; but we beat him, you see, and are safe and
sound--far ahead of him--in By-and-by. Things are being done here that
are always _going_ to be done behind there. It's great fun."

But at these words Betty's face grew very grave, and a sudden thought
struck her that was anything but "great fun." Would she be set to
doing all the things she had promised to do "by and by"?

"I 'm afraid so," said Mr. Bombus, replying to her question though she
had only _thought_ it. "I told you it depended on one's self if one
were going to like By-and-by or not. Evidently you 're _not_. Oh!