night-wind
stirring the palms, the muffled snoring of the professor, the faint
whisper and crackle of the fire.

A single candle burned brightly, piling our shadows together on the
wall behind us; moonlight silvered the window-panes, over which
crawled multitudes of soft-winged moths, attracted by the candle
within.

"See their tiny eyes glow!" she whispered. "How their wings quiver!
And all for a candle-flame! Alas! alas! fire is the undoing of us
all."

She leaned forward, resting as though buried in reverie. After a while
she extended one foot a trifle and, with the point of her shoe,
carefully unlatched the oven-door. As it swung outward a delicious
fragrance filled the room.

"They're done," she said, withdrawing her hand from mine. "Help me to
lift them out."

Together we arranged the delicious pastry in rows on the bench to
cool. I opened the door for a few minutes, then closed and bolted it
again.

"Do you suppose those transparent creatures will smell the odor and
come around the cabin?" she suggested, wiping her fingers on her
handkerchief.

I walked to the window uneasily. Outside the pane the moths crawled,
some brilliant in scarlet and tan-color set with black, some
snow-white with black tracings on their wings, and bodies peacock-blue
edged with orange. The scientist in me was aroused; I called her to
the window, and she came and leaned against the sill, nose pressed to
the glass.

"I don't suppose you know that the antennae of that silvery-winged moth
are distinctly pectinate," I said.

"Of course I do," she said. "I took my degree as D.E. at Barnard
College."

"What!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "You've been through Barnard? You
are a Doctor of Entomology?"

"It was my undoing," she said. "The department was abolished the year
I graduated. There was no similar vacancy, even in the Smithsonian."

She shrugged her shoulders, eyes fixed on the moths. "I had to make my
own living. I chose stenography as the quickest road to
self-sustenance."

She looked up, a flush on her cheeks.

"I suppose you took me for an inferior?" she said. "But do you suppose
I'd flirt with you if I was?"

She pressed her face to the pane again, murmuring that exquisite poem
of Andrew Lang:

"Spooning is innocuous and needn't have a sequel,
But recollect, if spoon you must, spoon only with your equal."

Standing there, watching the moths, we became rather silent--I don't
know why.

The fire in