Page:The Adventures of Maya the Bee (1922).djvu/244

succeeded in breaking out of the awful prison from which no bee had ever before escaped.

So Maya told of all the remarkable things she had seen and heard, of Miss Loveydear with the glittering wings, of the grasshopper, of Thekla the spider, of Puck, and of how splendidly Bobbie had come to her rescue. When she told of the sprite and the human beings, it was so quiet in the hall that you could hear the generators in the back of the hive kneading the wax.

"Ah," said the queen, "who'd have thought the sprites were so lovely?" She smiled to herself with a look of melancholy and longing, as people will who long for beauty.

And all the dignitaries smiled the same smile.

"How did the song of the sprite go?" she asked. "Say it again. I'd like to learn it by heart."

Maya repeated the song of the sprite.