, for young bees
will tolerate any sort of stranger. Behind her came the bee who had been
slanged by the Guard.

"What is the world like, Melissa?" said a companion. "Cruel! I brought
in a full load of first-class stuff, and the Guard told me to go and be
foul-brooded!" She sat down in the cool draught across the combs.

"If you'd only heard," said the Wax-moth silkily, "the insolence of
the Guard's tone when she cursed our sister. It aroused the Entire
Community." She laid an egg. She had stolen in for that purpose.

"There was a bit of a fuss on the Gate," Melissa chuckled. "You were
there, Miss?" She did not know how to address the slim stranger.

"Don't call me 'Miss.' I'm a sister to all in affliction--just a
working-sister. My heart bled for you beneath your burden." The Wax-moth
caressed Melissa with her soft feelers and laid another egg.

"You mustn't lay here," cried Melissa. "You aren't a Queen."

"My dear child, I give you my most solemn word of honour those aren't
eggs. Those are my principles, and I am ready to die for them." She
raised her voice a little above the rustle and tramp round her. "If
you'd like to kill me, pray do."

"Don't be unkind, Melissa," said a young bee, impressed by the chaste
folds of the Wax-moth's wing, which hid her ceaseless egg-dropping.

"I haven't done anything," Melissa answered. "She's doing it all."

"Ah, don't let your conscience reproach you later, but when you've
killed me, write me, at least, as one that loved her fellow-worker."

Laying at every sob, the Wax-moth backed into a crowd of young bees, and
left Melissa bewildered and annoyed. So she lifted up her little voice
in the darkness and cried, "Stores!" till a gang of cell-fillers hailed
her, and she left her load with them.

"I'm afraid I foul-brooded you just now," said a voice over her
shoulder. "I'd been on the Gate for three hours, and one would
foul-brood the Queen herself after that. No offence meant."

"None taken," Melissa answered cheerily. "I shall be on Guard myself,
some day. What's next to do?"

"There's a rumour of Death's Head Moths about. Send a gang of youngsters
to the Gate, and tell them to narrow it in with a couple of stout
scrap-wax pillars. It'll make the Hive hot, but we can't have Death's
Headers in the middle of our honey-flow."

"My Only Wings! I should think not!" Melissa had all a sound bee's
hereditary hatred against the big, squeaking, feathery Thief of the
Hives. "Tum