On the fourth day the glass pond was moved into the conservatory, "to be
out of the way." The fish were excellent eating, and though the snails
were at their wits' end as the refuse rotted, and the water became more
stagnant, and the weeds grew, till all the shell-fish in the pond could
not have kept the place clean,--I did not mind it myself. As the water
got low, I found a nice bit of rockwork above water, where I could sit
by day, and at night the lights from the drawing-room gave an
indescribable stimulus to my wings, and I sailed in, and flew round and
round till I was tired, and (forgetting that no pond, not even a bed of
mud, was below me!) drew in my wings, and dropped sharply down on to the
floor. To do the family justice, they learned to know the sound of my
fall, and even the old Doctor himself would go down on hands and knees
to hunt for me under the sofa, for fear I should be trodden on.
On the fifth day I swallowed the scarlet spider. I hated myself for
doing it, when I thought of Molly; but the spider was very foolish to
meet me. He should have kept behind. And if I hadn't eaten him, the
dragon-fly larva would. What _he_ had eaten, I do not think he could
have told himself.
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