Page:A Girl of the Limberlost.djvu/312

294 "Then suppose you don't start any scheme calculated to spoil her!" suggested Mrs. Comstock dryly. "I don't think you can, or that any man could, but I'm not taking any risks. You asked to come here to help in this work. We are both glad to have you, if you confine ourself to work; but it's the least you can do to leave us as you find us." "I beg your pardon!" said Ammon. "I intended no offence. I admire her as I admire any perfect creation." "And nothing in all this world spoils the average girl so quickly and so surely," said Mrs. Comstock. She raised her voice. "Elnora, fasten up that tag of hair over your left ear. These bushes muss you so you remind me of a sheep poking its nose through a hedge fence." Mrs. Comstock started down the path toward her log again, and as she reached it she called sharply, "Elnora, come here! I believe I have found something myself." The "something" was a which had just emerged from its case on the soft earth by the log. It climbed up the wood, Its stout legs dragging a big pursy body, while it wildly flapped tiny wings the size of a man's thumb-nail. Elnora gave one look and a cry which brought Ammon. "That's the rarest moth in America!" he announced. "Mrs. Comstock, you've gone up head. You can put that in a box with a screen cover to-night, and attract a half-dozen, possibly."