anything of that sort you are wrong. The fly was simply the cleverest
fly of all flies--someone must be the cleverest in any society, you
know--and he was just clever enough to like to be where the Princess
was, and to look at her beauty with all his hundreds of eyes. He was
clever enough to like this and to know that he liked it, but he was not
clever enough to know why.

So now, as the Princess stood fingering her ring and trying to make her
mind up, he gave an interested buzz, and the Princess jumped.

'Oh,' she said, 'it's only a horrid fly! But it has wings. It must be
lovely to have wings. I wish I were a fairy no bigger than that fly.'

And instantly she and her silver-trained gown, and her silver shoes, and
the magic ring, and everything about her, grew suddenly small, till she
was just as big as the fly and no bigger, and that is flower-fairy size.
Silver gauze wings grew out of her shoulders; she felt them unfolding
slowly, like a dragon-fly's wings when he first comes out of that dull
brown coat of his that hasn't any wing-parts.

She gave a tiny shriek of joyous surprise, and fluttered out through the
open window and down across the marble terraces to the palace
flowergarden. The fly buzzed heavily after her.

Pandora fluttered among roses and lilies on her bright, light, white
wings, but presently she was tired, because flying is much harder work
than you would think, especially when you have not been brought up to it
from a child. So she looked about for a place to rest in, and saw near
her the cool pink cave of a foxglove flower. She alighted on its lip,
folded her wings, and walked in on her little fairy feet. It was very
pleasant inside the foxglove. The Princess sat down by a drop of dew,
which was quite a pool to the tiny lady, and presently she took off her
rings and laid them on the smooth floor of the pink cave, and began to
dabble her hands in the dew-pool. The fly had settled on the outer edge
of the flower, and watched her with all his hundreds of eyes.

And now the dreadful thing happened. Pandora, her hands and face wet
with dew, suddenly saw the daylight darken at the entrance of her
foxglove cave. Then a black-winged monster, with hundreds and hundreds
of eyes, came quickly towards her on its six legs. Pandora was very
frightened, and squeezed herself close to the back of her cave. The fly
moved on, and quickly picked up the magic ring, now so tiny that it
fitted nicely on to one of i