And she hummed to her guards, and they answered low,
As she flew from her enemy's hive;

For she knew if the old queen happened to know,
She might never get out alive.

Oh! what a crowd of loyal bees
Followed their queenly lady;

Murmuring round her, under the trees
Of the orchard, sunny and shady;

Clustering thick in the sunshine warm,
On the woodbine-covered briar,

With a noise like the rush of a sudden storm,
Or the roar of a furnace fire.

A sugary hive turned upside down,

Invites the bees within;

And a small bell rings in a tinkling tone,
With dreamy, drowsy din.

And they hum to the music of the bell,
And the ring of the old tin kettle,
And the empty hive with its sugary smell,
Inviting them down to settle.

So her majesty flies from the woodbine bower,

And into the hive she dips,

And they bicker and buzz in and out for an hour,
When the gardener suddenly slips

A thick cloth over the hiving bees,
Imprisoning the angry band,

Then sets a new company under the trees,
With a steady and careful hand.

And now on the bowery bench behold,

Close under the jasmine wall,

The new swarm humming in peace with the old,
And blossoms enough for them all.

Edmund. It is not right after all.

GERDA FAY.

It is the old queen who bounces out in a rage when she is not allowed to kill the young one.

Aunt C. So I have always been told, and I believe

it is so.

Grace. But the other way is much the prettiest.

Alice. How do they know the queens apart?

Aunt C. That I cannot tell; but I am afraid the fact does not agree with the poetry.

Nautilus, Aunt?

Alice. That we may

Learn of the little Nautilus to sail,

Use the light oar, and catch the driving gale. Edmund. I don't fancy that anyone did.

Aunt C. Any more than they learnt of the bee to build, which no one ever did.

Edmund. It would be as awkward to put to sea in a boat like that, as to live in a six-sided cell without doors or windows.

Aunt C. And now we must give the Nautilus his poem, written by Charlotte Smith, a married lady of the end of the last century, who wrote novels and

verses.