Why shouldn’t she go to the ball? It was her coming-out day, after all!

She rattled at the latch once again, then flumped down in a cloud of dust and ruffles on the window seat, gazing longingly at the long hazy road down which Papa’s barouche had vanished with such haste.

No more pretty dresses, he’d said. No more pretty dresses as there’s too many legs.

But she would go to the ball. It was her coming-out day.

Wiping the tears from her compound eyes, she spread her wings and leapt.