Madame Redbelt 



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I WAS sitting on the stone wall waiting 

 for the August sun to knock off its day's 

 work, and idly watching a gray spider 

 that had spread a gauzy net across an opening 

 among the loose slabs, when Madame Redbelt 

 came and sat down beside me. 



I looked for trouble at once, for Madame 

 Redbelt is a wasp, and many wasps have a habit 

 not only of dining off spiders, but of preferring 

 them as food for their babies, which has made 

 hard feeling between the two branches of the 

 insect race, from which only the most enlight- 

 ened members are free. Therefore I was anx- 

 ious, but when I saw the visitor coolly running 

 about underneath the web, while the gray spider 

 peered down with languid wonder at her activ- 

 ity in the heat, apparently not fearing her at 

 all, I aroused myself to sharper attention. 

 ^ 13 ^ 



