was
merely an empty paper-box, such as Mrs. Boardman often put in her room
when she found one, to use as a home for her pets. The cover rolled
away, but Miss Ketchum did not stop to look for it, and went down to
the sitting room again.

Of course you can guess what happened. Whether the caterpillars were
asleep or not when the box fell, I could not tell you, but after that
they were certainly very wide-awake, for they travelled out of the box
and all over the room. Before Miss Ketchum had come up to go to bed
they had made their way all over the room. There were some of them on
the ceiling, some crawling over the white counter-pane on Miss
Ketchum's bed, some upon her pillow, and a very fat, large caterpillar,
that Ruby had found upon a tomato-plant, had crept up on the
looking-glass and had gone to sleep there.

[Illustration: MISS KETCHUM AND THE CATERPILLARS (missing from book)]

Miss Ketchum was very much interested in caterpillars, but of course
she did not want to have them walking all about her room in this way;
so you can imagine how surprised and perhaps a little frightened she
was when she came upstairs to bed, and struck a light, and saw the
caterpillars making themselves quite at home all about her room. She
could not understand it at first, and then it occurred to her that
perhaps some of the girls had been playing a trick upon her, and had
put them in the room to annoy her. Some of the scholars were unkind
enough to tease Miss Ketchum sometimes, and it would not have surprised
her if this had been the case to-night.

At last she remembered the box, and picking up the cover, she saw
written carefully upon it, "With Ruby's love," and then she knew how it
had happened.

Ruby had put them there to please her, and if the cover had stayed on
the box, the caterpillars would have been quite safe, and would have
been in their prison yet; but she remembered having knocked the box
down, and it was undoubtedly then that they strayed out and wandered
about the room.

Poor Miss Ketchum! She sighed as she looked about the room. She could
not go to bed and perhaps have the caterpillars creeping all over her
in the night, and yet it seemed like a hopeless task to catch them, and
she had no idea how many there were.

But Ruby had meant to be so kind that she thought more of her little
scholar's affection for her than she did of the work she had so
unintentionally given her.

One by one she patiently captu