the brook, and the butterfly flew with it, for he was fastened to it, and could
not get away.
Oh, how frightened little Tiny felt when the cockchafer flew with her to
the tree! But especially was she sorry for the beautiful white butterfly which
she had fastened to the leaf, for if he could not free himself he would die of
hunger. But the cockchafer did not trouble himself at all about the matter.
He seated himself by her side on a large green leaf, gave her some honey
from the flowers to eat, and told her she was very pretty, though not in the
least like a cockchafer. After a time, all the cockchafers turned up their
feelers, and said, “She has only two legs! how ugly that looks.” “She has no
feelers,” said another. “Her waist is quite slim. Pooh! she is like a human
being.”
“Oh! she is ugly,” said all the lady cockchafers, although Tiny was very
pretty. Then the cockchafer who had run away with her, believed all the
others when they said she was ugly, and would have nothing more to say to
her, and told her she might go where she liked. Then he flew down with her
from the tree, and placed her on a daisy, and she wept at the thought that she
was so ugly that even the cockchafers would have nothing to say to her.
And all the while she was really the loveliest creature that one could
imagine, and as tender and delicate as a beautiful rose-leaf. During the
whole summer poor little Tiny lived quite alone in the wide forest. She
wove herself a bed with blades of grass, and hung it up under a broad leaf,
to protect herself from the rain. She sucked the honey from the flowers for
food, and drank the dew from their leaves every morning. So passed away
the summer and the autumn, and then came the winter,- the long, cold
winter. All the birds who had sung to her so sweetly were flown away, and
the trees and the flowers had withered. The large clover leaf under the
shelter of which she had lived, was now rolled together and shrivelled up,
nothing remained but a yellow withered stalk. She felt dreadfully cold, for
her clothes were torn, and she was herself so frail and delicate, that poor
little Tiny was nearly frozen to death. It began to snow too; and the snow-
flakes, as they fell upon her, were like a whole shovelful falling upon one of
