Betty was a trifle uncomfortable.  She had a vague idea the humble-bee was making sport of her.  The next moment she was sure of it; for he burst into a deep laugh, and shook so from side to side that she thought he would surely topple off the wisp of hay on which he was sitting.

“I think you ’re real mean,” said Betty, as he slowly recovered himself; “I don’t like folks to laugh at me, now!”

“I ’m not laughing at you now,” explained the humble-bee, gravely; “I was laughing at you then.  Do you object to that?”

Betty disdained to reply, and began to pull a dry clover-blossom to pieces.

“Tut, tut, child!  Don’t be so touchy!  A body can laugh, can’t he, and no harm done?  You ’d better be good-tempered and jolly, and then I ’ll tell you where I ’m going,—­which, I believe, was what you wished to know in the first place, was n’t it?”

Betty nodded her head, but did not speak.

“Oho!” said the humble-bee, rising and preparing to take his departure.  And now Betty discovered, on seeing him more closely, that he was not a humble-bee at all, but just a very corpulent old gentleman dressed in quite an antique fashion, with black knee-breeches, black silk stockings, black patent-leather pumps with large buckles, a most elaborate black velvet waistcoat with yellow and orange stripes across, and a coat of black velvet to correspond with the breeches; while in his hand he carried a very elegant three-cornered hat, which, out of respect to her, he had removed from his head at the first moment of their meeting.  “So we are sulky?” he went on.  “Dear, dear!  That is a very disagreeable condition to allow one’s self to relapse into.  H’m, h’m! very unpleasant, very!  Under the circumstances I think I ’d better be going; for if you ’ll believe me, I ’m pressed for time, and have none to waste, and only came back to converse with you because you addressed a civil question to me, which, being a gentleman, I was bound to answer.  Good—­”

He would have said “by;” but Betty sprang to her feet and cried:  “Please don’t leave me.  I ’ll be good and pleasant, only please don’t go. Please tell me where you ’re going, and if—­if you would be so good, I ’d like ever and ever so much to go along.  Don’t—­do—­may I?”

The little gentleman looked her over from head to foot, and then replied in a hesitating sort of way:  “You may not be aware of it, but you are extremely incautious.  What would you do if I were to whisk you off and never bring you back, eh?”

“You don’t look like a kidnapper, sir,” said Betty, respectfully.

“A what?” inquired the little gentleman.

“A kidnapper,” repeated Betty.

“What’s that?” questioned her companion.

“Oh, a person who steals little children.  Don’t you know?”

“But why kidnapper?” insisted the little old man.

“I suppose because he naps kids.  My uncle Will calls Roger and me ‘kids.’  It is n’t very nice of him, is it?” she asked, glad to air her grievance.