slap at the buzzing insect.

"You will surely be stung," I said, "if you act in that way. If you will
slap at the wasp, don't use your hand; take something with which you can
kill it."

"What can I take?" she exclaimed, now running round the table, and
stopping close to the grating. "Give me something."

I hurriedly glanced around my study. I saw nothing that would answer for
a weapon but a whisk broom, which I seized, and endeavored to thrust
through the meshes of the grating.

"Oh!" she cried, as the wasp made a desperate dive close to her face,
"give me that, quick!" and she stretched out her hand to me.

"I cannot," I replied; "I can't push it through. It won't go through.
Take your bonnet."

At this, my nun seized her bonnet by a sort of floating hood which hung
around the bottom of it and jerked it from her head, bringing with it
certain flaps and ligatures and combs, which, being thus roughly
removed, allowed a mass of wavy hair to fall about her shoulders.

Waving her bonnet in her hand, like a slung-shot, she sprang back and
waited for the wasp. When the buzzing creature came near enough, she
made a desperate crack at him, missing him; she struck again and again,
now high, now low; she dashed from side to side of the room, and with
one of her mad sweeps she scattered a dozen pages of manuscript upon the
floor.

The view of this combat was enrapturing to me; the face of my nun, now
lighted by a passionate determination to kill that wasp, was a delight
to my eyes. If I could have assured myself that the wasp would not sting
her, I would have helped him to prolong the battle indefinitely. But my
nun was animated by very different emotions. She was bound to be avenged
upon the wasp, and avenged she was. Almost springing into the air, she
made a grand stroke at him, as he receded from her, hit him, and dashed
him against the wall. He fell to the floor, momentarily disabled, but
flapping and buzzing. Then down she stooped, and with three great whacks
with her bonnet she finished the battle. The wasp lay motionless.

"Now," she said, throwing her bonnet upon the table, "I will close that
window;" and she walked across the room, her blue eyes sparkling, her
face glowing from her violent exercise, and her rich brown hair hanging
in long waves upon her shoulders.

"Don't do that," I said; "it will make your room too warm. There is a
netting screen in the corner there. If you put that under the sash, it
will