MOTHS AT THE MRESIDE. 65 



household was therefore on the premises, and were all 

 on the alert to know what such strange procedure 

 might portend. Dan shook his head significantly, and 

 evidently considered it a natural outcropping of my 

 malady. Sarah, the cook, thought that " yarbs '• for 

 medicine might be at the bottom of the business, until 

 Hugh explained that something more than plants had 

 been carried home. He had a fixint glimmer of the 

 facts, for some one had told him that his " boss used to 

 be a great bug-hunter." Joe, Jenny and their little 

 brother Harry, a bright twelve-year-old boy, with that 

 strong sympathy with nature which marks young 

 people, were full of curiosity which (with Harry espe- 

 cially) overflowed in a very freshet of questions. The 

 Mistress had noted all these things as she moved back 

 and forth, and at her request an invitation was carried 

 to the whole domestic company to join the evening con- 

 versation. All accepted heartily except Sarah, a middle- 

 aged white woman, childless and a "grass-widow," 

 who declared that she "didn't see no use in any sich 

 nonsense." Nevertheless, as she sat in the shadows 

 beside the kitchen-stove she cast many surreptitious 

 looks through the open door upon the group at the 

 table, and kept a wide-oi^en ear turned in the same 

 direction. 



"Suppose you begin the conversation," said Abby, 

 " by telling us the use of these cocoons. What ends do 

 they serve in nature ? I was much interested in your 

 statements this morning, and would like our circle to 

 have the benefit of some of them at least." 



