The Tale of Mrs. Ladybug

Meanwhile Rusty Wren was looking all around. Yet he couldn't see the pretty beetle (meaning Mrs. Ladybug) anywhere. "Somebody must have swallowed it, anyhow," he thought.

"You must be more careful," his wife told him severely. "That was a horrid-tasting beetle that you brought home. It's lucky I discovered that it was a queer one. The children--poor dears!--are so hungry that any one of them would have bolted it had I offered it to him."

"Then you ate it yourself," Rusty Wren faltered.

"Oh, no, I didn't," said his wife. "I dropped it upon the ground. And no doubt I'd have thrown it away, anyhow, no matter how it tasted."

"Why?" he asked her. "I thought it was a pretty beetle."

"It was pretty enough--I dare say," Mrs. Wren replied. "But it had a very hard shell. It wouldn't have been safe to feed it to the children. Nor should I have cared to eat it myself."