“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 moths.”

“Wait until I get a knife and a pail and I will go along,” answered Mrs. Comstock.  “The dandelions are plenty tender for greens among the deep grasses, and I might just happen to see something myself.  My eyes are pretty sharp.”

“I wish you could realize how young you are,” said Elnora.  “I know women in Onabasha who are ten years older than you, yet they look twenty years younger.  So could you, if you would dress your hair becomingly, and wear appropriate clothes.”

“I think my hair puts me in the old woman class permanently,” said Mrs. Comstock.

“Well, it doesn’t!” cried Elnora.  “There is a woman of twenty-eight who has hair as white as yours from sick headaches, but her face is young and beautiful.  If your face would grow a little fuller and those lines would go away, you’d be lovely!”