uaintance."

In the mean time the questioner was silent. Occupied with the
comfort of exposing all his little person to the sun, he extended
his wings, which, intersected with nerves, became every moment more
substantial, without losing any of their delicacy. This transparent
network, divided like stained glass windows, by dark lines,
resembled isinglass, sometimes decomposing the sun's rays, and
showing the colors of the rainbow.

The head of the insect, as it dried, became shiny like satin; the
eyes, of a reddish brown, glowed in a circle of silver. Over a
little jet band, on the top of his head, three little soft eyes
peeped out like those which the young observer had already noticed
in the other fly. The brown trunk of this one seemed more delicate;
his bronze corselet, reflecting like emerald, was garnished with
fine hairs, like the down which the fresh morning spreads over
beautiful fruits. The belly of the insect, which showed itself
between and through the transparent wings, was of a beautiful
shining black set off by six white crescents, symmetrically placed
on the right and left. The legs appeared to Piccolissima brown, and
very delicate. As she examined them, she remembered that the young
boaster had vaunted itself of having forty-two of them; and she was
upon the point of venturing to inquire what had become of the
superfluous ones, when the lively fly, finding itself dry and
strengthened, raised two of its legs and examined them very closely,
and crossing them with great dexterity rubbed the soles of his feet
one against the other. Piccolissima was tempted so to call the two
balls of flesh covered with hair, and armed with two nails which
terminated the foot bones. The fly, having cleaned his brushes or
sponges,--for they were as much like one as the other,--employing
his trunk very skilfully, began to rub them over and under his
wings, and over his little face, his eyes, and his antennae. He
combed, brushed, sponged, and cleaned himself all over. Hardly had
he finished one side before he began upon the other, using those of
his six feet which were the most convenient. At last, he seemed
weary of being watched by Piccolissima; and, shaking himself, he
just grazed the eyelids of the little girl with his wings, and all
of a sudden flew away, and alighted on the window pane, where he
marched backward and forward with his head now up, and now down,
quite indifferent to the laws of gravity.

Piccolissima fo