“How beautifully the flowers are planned,” she said to the cuckoo.  “Is it just to look pretty, or why?”

“It saves time,” replied the cuckoo.  “The fetch-and-carry butterflies know exactly where to go to for the tint the world-flower-painters want.”

“Who are the fetch-and-carry butterflies, and who are the world-flower-painters?” asked Griselda.

“Wait a bit and you’ll see, and use your eyes,” answered the cuckoo.  “It’ll do your tongue no harm to have a rest now and then.”

Griselda thought it as well to take his advice, though not particularly relishing the manner in which it was given.  She did use her eyes, and as she and the cuckoo made their way along the flower alleys, she saw that the butterflies were never idle.  They came regularly, in little parties of twos and threes, and nibbled away, as she called it, at flowers of the same colour but different shades, till they had got what they wanted.  Then off flew butterfly No. 1 with perhaps the palest tint of maize, or yellow, or lavender, whichever he was in quest of, followed by No. 2 with the next deeper shade of the same, and No. 3 bringing up the rear.

Griselda gave a little sigh.

“What’s the matter?” said the cuckoo.

“They work very hard,” she replied, in a melancholy tone.

“It’s a busy time of year,” observed the cuckoo, drily.

After a while they came to what seemed to be a sort of centre to the garden.  It was a huge glass house, with numberless doors, in and out of which butterflies were incessantly flying—­reminding Griselda again of bees and a beehive.  But she made no remark till the cuckoo spoke again.

“Come in,” he said.

Griselda had to stoop a good deal, but she did manage to get in without knocking her head or doing any damage.  Inside was just a mass of butterflies.  A confused mass it seemed at first, but after a while she saw that it was the very reverse of confused.  The butterflies were all settled in rows on long, narrow, white tables, and before each was a tiny object about the size of a flattened-out pin’s head, which he was most carefully painting with one of his tentacles, which, from time to time, he moistened by rubbing it on the head of a butterfly waiting patiently behind him.  Behind this butterfly again stood another, who after a while took his place, while the first attendant flew away.

“To fill his paint-box again,” remarked the cuckoo, who seemed to read Griselda’s thoughts.

“But what are they painting, cuckoo?” she inquired eagerly.

“All the flowers in the world,” replied the cuckoo.  “Autumn, winter, and spring, they’re hard at work.  It’s only just for the three months of summer that the butterflies have any holiday, and then a few stray ones now and then wander up to the world, and people talk about ’idle butterflies’!  And even then it isn’t true that they are idle.  They go up to take a look at the flowers, to see how their work has turned out, and many a damaged petal they repair, or touch up a faded tint, though no one ever knows it.”