city, and the girl had come to meet him to
tell him so.

"You were a brick to do it!" he whispered as he closed the gate behind
them. "I'll never forget you for it. Thank you ever so much."

"I did not do that for you," said Elnora tersely. "I did it mostly to
preserve my own self-respect. I saw you were forgetting. If I did it for
anything besides that, I did it for her."

"Just look what I've brought!" said Philip, entering the arbour and
greeting Mrs. Comstock. "Borrowed it of the Bird Woman. And it isn't
hers. A rare edition of Catocalae with coloured plates. I told her the
best I could, and she said to try for Sappho here. I suspect the Bird
Woman will be out presently. She was all excitement."

Then they bent over the book together and with the mounted moth before
them determined her family. The Bird Woman did come later, and carried
the moth away, to put into a book and Elnora and Philip were freshly
filled with enthusiasm.

So these days were the beginning of the weeks that followed. Six of them
flying on Time's wings, each filled to the brim with interest. After
June, the moth hunts grew less frequent; the fields and woods were
searched for material for Elnora's grade work. The most absorbing
occupation they found was in carrying out Mrs. Comstock's suggestion
to learn the vital thing for which each month was distinctive, and make
that the key to the nature work. They wrote out a list of the months,
opposite each the things all of them could suggest which seemed to
pertain to that month alone, and then tried to sift until they found
something typical. Mrs. Comstock was a great help. Her mother had
been Dutch and had brought from Holland numerous quaint sayings and
superstitions easily traceable to Pliny's Natural History; and in Mrs.
Comstock's early years in Ohio she had heard much Indian talk among her
elders, so she knew the signs of each season, and sometimes they helped.
Always her practical thought and sterling common sense were useful. When
they were afield until exhausted they came back to the cabin for food,
to prepare specimens and classify them, and to talk over the day.
Sometimes Philip brought books and read while Elnora and her mother
worked, and every night Mrs. Comstock asked for the violin. Her perfect
hunger for music was sufficient evidence of how she had suffered without
it. So the days crept by, golden, filled with useful work and pure
pleasure.

The grosbeak had led the family in t