"Chip!" whisk! and
Madam Squirrel was off up the branch like a streak of brown lightning,
with its tail up.
Hilda laughed at the squirrel's alarm, and then turned her attention to
a large green grasshopper who seemed to demand it. He had alighted on
her knee, and now proceeded to exhibit his different points before her
admiring gaze with singular gravity and deliberation. First he slowly
opened his wings, to show the delicate silvery gauze of the under-wings;
then as slowly closed them, demonstrating the perfect fit of his whole
wing-costume and the harmony of its colors. He next extended one leg,
calling her attention to its remarkable length and muscular
proportions. Then, lest she should think he had but one, he extended
the other; and then gave a vigorous hop with both of them, to show her
that he did not really need wings, but could get on perfectly well
without them. Finally he rubbed himself all over with his long antennae,
and then, pointing them full at her, and gazing at her with calm and
dispassionate eyes, he said plainly enough: "And now, Monster, what have
_you_ to show _me_?"
Hildegarde was wondering how she could best dispel the scorn with which
this majestic insect evidently regarded her, when suddenly something new
appeared on her gown,--something black, many-legged, hairy, most
hideous; something which ran swiftly but stealthily, with a motion which
sent a thrill of horror through her veins. She started up with a little
shriek, shaking off the unlucky spider as if it had been the Black Death
in concrete.
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