And the Queen was glad that it was so, because she herself never could
have stopped so many of them from going to sleep. And even then, if the
truth must be known, the Queen wished that she might go to bed. Never in
all her life had she been up so late before.

"I wish the Fireflies would hurry!" she exclaimed as she stood at the
front-door of her house and looked across the fast darkening field.

As she watched anxiously, the Queen soon spied a light, which kept
growing brighter and brighter, until at last Freddie Firefly dropped
down before her. He took off his cap and made a low bow.

"Here I am, Queen!" he said.

"Where's the rest of your family?" Buster Bumblebee's mother asked him.

"They all had to go to a dance down by the swamp," Freddie Firefly
explained. "They wanted me to go with them; but I had promised your son
that I'd be here at dusk. And of course I wouldn't think of breaking my
promise."

Well, the Queen was terribly disappointed.

"You never can furnish enough light for my forty-nine workers!" she
cried.

"Perhaps not!" Freddie admitted. "But I'd be glad to take one of them to
the clover-patch to-night, just as a trial, you know."

The Queen said that that was a good idea. And the honey-makers, who had