Franconia are with the sight of idle tourists,--

"Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air,
And they were butterflies to wheel about
Long as the summer lasted."

We were neither "rapid" nor "gay," and it was still only the first week
of June; if we were summer boarders, therefore, we must be of some
unusual early-blooming variety.

First came a lady, in excellent repute among the savants of Europe and
America as an entomologist, but better known to the general public as a
writer of stories. With her, as companion and assistant, was a doctor of
laws, who is also a newspaper proprietor, a voluminous author, an art
connoisseur, and many things beside. They had turned their backs thus
unseasonably upon the metropolis, and in this pleasant out-of-the-way
corner were devoting themselves to one absorbing pursuit,--the pursuit
of moths. On their daily drives, two or three insect nets dangled
conspicuously from the carriage,--the footman, thrifty soul, was never
backward to take a hand,--and evening after evening the hotel piazza was
illuminated till midnight with lamps and lanterns, while these
enthusiasts waved the same white nets about, gathering in geometries,
noctuids, sphinges, and Heaven knows what else, all of them to perish
painlessly in numerous "cyanide bottles," which bestrewed the piazza by
night, and (happy thought!) the closed piano by day. In this noble
occupation I sometimes played at helping; but with only meagre success,
my most brilliant catch being nothing more important than a "beautiful
Io." The kind-hearted lepidopterist lingered with gracious emphasis upon
the adjective, and assured me that the specimen would be all the more
valuable because of a finger-mark which my awkwardness had left upon one
of its wings. So--to the credit of human nature be it spoken--so does
amiability sometimes get the better of the feminine scientific spirit.
To the credit of human nature, I say; for, though her practice of the
romancer's art may doubtless have given to this good lady some peculiar
flexibility of mind, some special, individual facility in subordinating
a lower truth to a higher, it surely may be affirmed, also, of humanity
in general, that few things become it better than its inconsistencies.

Of the four remaining members of the company, two were botanists, and
two--for the time--ornithologists. But the botanists were lovers of
birds, also, and went nowhere without opera-glasses; while the
orn