“Oh, goody!” said Louise.  “I wonder what my good luck is going to be?”

“Shake it off, Louise, let it light on me,” said Nancy.  “I want good luck to come to me too.”

“It is just the color of my new crimson dress,” declared Polly.

“Only your red dress hasn’t spots on it,” corrected Louise.

“No, but the red is about the same shade as my dress.  Oh, girls, wouldn’t a row of ladybirds for buttons be pretty on my waist?”

At this quaint conceit the three girls all giggled again.

“I do think they are the cutest little bugs.  I never get tired of looking at them,” observed Polly.

“Bugs?  You wouldn’t call them bugs, would you?” inquired Louise.  “I think they are little beetles.”

“Beetles?  No, no,” said Polly and Nancy both in one breath, “A beetle is a big black thing that flies around only at dusk.”

“Do you suppose your father would know?” asked Louise of Polly.  “Let’s take it in the house and ask him, and so settle whether it is bug or beetle.”

And they came running into the sitting room behind the store to show the lady-bird to Polly’s father, who was there looking over his paper.

“Is it a bug or a beetle?” they asked.

He laid down the paper and looked at the pretty little insect a moment.

“It is a ladybird.”

“Yes, of course, we know that, papa; but Nancy and I say it is a bug, and Louise says it’s a beetle,” explained Polly.

“Louise is right,” was his reply.  “It is classed as a beetle.  It is one of the best friends the farmer has, and the fruit grower too.”

“How is it useful to him?” asked Nancy.

“Why, it eats the lice that spoil certain plants and leaves and grain.  I notice that the Australian government is—­Do you girls know where Australia is?” he asked, interrupting himself.

“Of course we do,” they all shouted with much laughing, as if it were a great joke to ask them such a question.

“Well, I was going to tell you that the Australian government is taking steps to encourage the ladybird on purpose to help the fruit farmers of that country.  Perhaps they have heard that it brings good luck,” he added with a smile.

“Let’s show it to Dickey Downy and then put it out of the door and let it go home,” said Polly.

“Dickey Downy wouldn’t know a lady-bird from a grasshopper,” answered Nancy teasingly.

Polly retorted, “Don’t be too sure!  Dickey is a very intelligent bird, a very extraordinary bird.”

She contented herself with paying me compliments, for instead of bringing the crimson beetle into the store she opened the window and let him fly away.

“Well, I’m glad I have learned something new about ladybirds,” remarked Louise, as she tied her hat strings ready to go home.

“And I too,” chimed in Nancy.  “I am glad the Australians prize the pretty little creatures.  It’s nice to be useful and handsome too.”