But to-day it had struck her that she could hardly protect herself in this way without offering a similar safeguard to her visitor, and she had no wish to hedge him about with safeguards.
'Oh, no,' she said, brightly; 'I'm not afraid of a few bees. Are you?'
'Rather not!'
'You know what to do if one of them flies at you?'
'Well, it would, anyway—what? What I mean to say is, I could leave most of the doing to the bee.'
Elizabeth was more disapproving than ever. This was mere bravado.
She did not speak again until they reached the hives.
In the neighbourhood of the hives a vast activity prevailed. What, heard from afar, had been a pleasant murmur became at close quarters a menacing tumult. The air was full of bees—bees sallying forth for honey, bees returning with honey, bees trampli
