“Now,” said the wasp, “I have just papered my house with the last bit of paper I had, but if you can wait, I will make you a sheet.”

Then the rose elf knew that Mrs. Wasp had a kind heart; and she waited and watched with a great deal of interest while Mrs. Wasp set to work.  Now, close by her house was an old bit of dry wood, and Mrs. Wasp sawed it into fine bits, like thread, with her two sharp saws that she carries about her.  Then she wet these bits well with some glue from her mouth, and rolled them into a round ball.

“Oh, Mrs. Wasp!” cried the rose elf, “I’m afraid I am putting you to too much trouble.”

“Don’t fret about me,” said the wasp; “I’m used to work.”  So she spread out the ball, working with all her might, into a thin sheet of gray paper; and when it was dry, she gave it to the rose elf.

“Thank you, good Mrs. Wasp,” said the elf; and she flew away to invite the lily elf and the poppy elf to help her with the letter, for she wanted it to be as sweet as all the flowers of spring.

When it was finished they read it aloud.

  “Dear Polly: 
     I’m a little elf
     I live within a flow’r;
    I live to hear your happy song,
     It cheers my ev’ry hour. 
    That I love you, I’d like to say
     To you, before I close,
    And please sing sweetly ev’ry day
     To
        Your friend within a Rose.”

The letter was sent by a bluebird; and the elf was sure that Polly understood, for that very day she came and stood among the flowers to sing the very sweetest song she knew.

PART III.

Out in Grandmother’s garden, just as the sun was up, a very cunning spinner spun a lovely wheel of fine beautiful threads; and when Grandmother and Lindsay came out, they spied it fastened up in a rose bush.

The small, cunning spinner was climbing a silken rope near by with her eight nimble legs, and looking out at the world with her eight tiny eyes, when Grandmother saw her and pointed her out to Lindsay; and Lindsay said:—­

“Oh, Mrs. Spider! come spin me some lace!” which made Grandmother think of a little story which she had told Lindsay’s papa and all of her little children, when they were lads and lassies, and this garden of hers had just begun to bloom.

She sat down on the steps and told it to Lindsay.

Once, long, long ago, when the silver moon was shining up in the sky, and the small golden stars were twinkling, twinkling, a little fairy with a bundle of dreams went hurrying home to fairyland.

She looked up at the stars and moon to see what time it was, for the fairy queen had bidden her come back before the day dawned.

All out in the world it was sleepy time; and the night wind was singing an old sweet lullaby, and the mocking bird was singing too, by himself, in the wood.

“I shall not be late,” said the fairy, as she flew like thistle-down through the air or tripped over the heads of the flowers; but in her haste she flew into a spider’s web, which held her so fast that, although she struggled again and again, she could not get free.