Coming-out day

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.