THERE was one thing that Mrs. Ladybug dreaded more than any other.  That was ­fire.  The slightest whiff of smoke sent her into a flutter of alarm.  The sight of a blaze made her almost frantic.

Perhaps Mrs. Ladybug’s neighbors ­more than she ­were to be blamed for her fear.  Some of them had an unkind way of frightening her.  When they found her a bit too prying with her countless questions about this, that, and the other matter that did not concern her, they said to her: 

“Aren’t you worried, Mrs. Ladybug?  What if your house were on fire?  Wouldn’t your children burn?”

Such questions never failed to send Mrs. Ladybug hurrying away.

After a while people began to wonder where Mrs. Ladybug went when she dashed away like that.  Nobody seemed to know where she lived.  They supposed that she must fly to her home, wherever it was.

To everybody’s surprise, Mrs. Ladybug appeared to want to keep the site of her house a secret from all her friends.  When they asked her, point-blank, where her house was, she always pretended not to hear the question and left them.  Or she would begin to ask questions of her own choosing, without answering theirs.

“Humph!” said some people.  “Mrs. Ladybug likes to pry into our affairs.  She wants to know all about our business.  And when she learns anything about anybody else she can’t rest until she has told it to the whole neighborhood.”

The more Mrs. Ladybug’s friends thought about her house, the harder they tried to discover its whereabouts.  Sometimes they even mentioned fire to her and then tried to follow her when she hurried off.  But she always managed to give them the slip before she had gone far.

Now and then somebody or other thought he had found Mrs. Ladybug’s house.  But in the end somebody else was sure to prove that he was mistaken.

Once Freddie Firefly announced with great pride that at last he knew where Mrs. Ladybug was rearing her family.

“Her house,” he explained, “is in a hole in the ground, in the meadow.”

And that night he led Miss Mehitable Moth to the spot, lighting the way with his flickering gleams.

She soon pointed out his mistake.  He had led her to the doorway of the Bumblebee family, who were all sound asleep inside their crowded house.

After that Freddie Firefly had to listen to a good many titters from his friends.

“The idea!” they would say.  “Mrs. Ladybug must have a much bigger house than the Bumblebee family’s.  She couldn’t squeeze her children into such small quarters as theirs.  Why, she has more children than she can count.”