midst of which your friend has passed his early days?"

"They are the little red or green grubs which infest the rose bush;
these he pierces and grinds up with his teeth, and sucks them up
with his strange mouth one after another as he moves slowly among
them upon those forty-two roots of feet, of which he is so vain, for
I maintain that they cannot be called legs, or any thing like legs."

"You, then," said the little girl, "have better formed members."

The fly, who remembered that he had not at all better limbs, looked
suddenly wearied with the conversation, and shaking his wings, flew
away to the window.

"Of what color were you formerly?" asked the little girl of her only
remaining companion; "you, who are now of such a pretty shade of
brilliant green and bronze?"

"Me! I was of a pretty tender green. Weary of living on the ground,
I took the resolution to retire from the world. I shut myself up in
my skin, which soon became hard enough to serve for my retreat. My
house was carried, I know not how, to that spot not far from you; I
know not what artificial heat acted on me. I came to the belief that
the time had come for me to spread my wings, and I uncovered the
roof of my house in order that I might know what had been done
during my absence. They call me the rose fly."

As he finished saying these words, the fly, quite satisfied, joined
his companion in the window. Piccolissima was grieved that she could
not follow them; she listened attentively to the noise they made in