"WHAT AILS HIM?" 241 
how many before him have marvelled at that 
strange exhibition among the woodbine leaves 
which had now probably met his eyes for the first 
time ? In another moment he was at the piazza 
stoop, and now he appears at the studio door. 
Eager anticipation and shortness of breath were 
equally manifest as he approached my easel and, 
with his right hand still out- 
stretched towards me, ^ 
exclaimed, "Well, * ^ * 
what ails him?" +? *& 
rT 
at the same 
time laying down 
before me the mys- 
terious specimen. It 
was a leaf of the woodbine,, 
bearing along its stem a cylindrical mass of what 
appeared to be tiny, oblong, white eggs, all set on 
end, and so densely packed that but for the head 
and tail of the shrunken, green caterpillar which 
appeared at the two extremities of the mass no 
one would have guessed their origin. " What 
ails him ?" 
" I was sitting on my porch," continued my puz- 
