ht not only
had wrecked the other specimens of the case, but torn themselves to
fringes on the pins. A third of the rarest moths of the collection
for the man of India were antennaless, legless, wingless, and often
headless. Elnora sobbed aloud.

"This is overwhelming," she said at last. "It is making a fatalist of
me. I am beginning to think things happen as they are ordained from the
beginning, this plainly indicating that there is to be no college, at
least, this year, for me. My life is all mountain-top or canon. I wish
some one would lead me into a few days of 'green pastures.' Last night I
went to sleep on mother's arm, the moths all secured, love and college,
certainties. This morning I wake to find all my hopes wrecked. I simply
don't dare let mother know that instead of helping me, she has ruined
my collection. Everything is gone--unless the love lasts. That actually
seemed true. I believe I will go see."

The love remained. Indeed, in the overflow of the long-hardened, pent-up
heart, the girl was almost suffocated with tempestuous caresses and
generous offerings. Before the day was over, Elnora realized that she
never had known her mother. The woman who now busily went through
the cabin, her eyes bright, eager, alert, constantly planning, was a
stranger. Her very face was different, while it did not seem possible
that during one night the acid of twenty years could disappear from a
voice and leave it sweet and pleasant.

For the next few days Elnora worked at mounting the moths her mother had
taken. She had to go to the Bird Woman and tell about the disaster, but
Mrs. Comstock was allowed to think that Elnora delivered the moths
when she made the trip. If she had told her what actually happened, the
chances were that Mrs. Comstock again would have taken possession of the
Limberlost, hunting there until she replaced all the moths that had been
destroyed. But Elnora knew from experience what it meant to collect such
a list in pairs. It would require steady work for at least two summers
to replace the lost moths. When she left the Bird Woman she went to the
president of the Onabasha schools and asked him to do all in his power
to secure her a room in one of the ward buildings.

The next morning the last moth was mounted, and the housework finished.
Elnora said to her mother, "If you don't mind, I believe I will go into
the woods pasture beside Sleepy Snake Creek and see if I can catch some
dragonflies or moth