The eyes of the father were very bright.

“The friend for whom you wanted the moth is a girl?” he asked indifferently, as he ran the book leaves through his fingers.

“The girl of whom I wrote you last summer, and told you about in the fall.  I helped her all the time I was away.”

“Did Edith know of her?”

“I tried many times to tell her, to interest her, but she was so indifferent that it was insulting.  She would not hear me.”

“We are neither one in any condition to sleep.  Why don’t you begin at the first and tell me about this girl?  To think of other matters for a time may clear our vision for a sane solution of this.  Who is she, just what is she doing, and what is she like?  You know I was reared among those Limberlost people, I can understand readily.  What is her name and where does she live?”

Philip gave a man’s version of the previous summer, while his father played with the book industriously.

“You are very sure as to her refinement and education?”

“In almost two months’ daily association, could a man be mistaken?  She can far and away surpass Polly, Edith, or any girl of our set on any common, high school, or supplementary branch, and you know high schools have French, German, and physics now.  Besides, she is a graduate of two other institutions.  All her life she has been in the school of Hard Knocks.  She has the biggest, tenderest, most human heart I ever knew in a girl.  She has known life in its most cruel phases, and instead of hardening her, it has set her trying to save other people suffering.  Then this nature position of which I told you; she graduated in the School of the Woods, before she secured that.  The Bird Woman, whose work you know, helped her there.  Elnora knows more interesting things in a minute than any other girl I ever met knew in an hour, provided you are a person who cares to understand plant and animal life.”

The book leaves slid rapidly through his fingers as the father drawled:  “What sort of looking girl is she?”

“Tall as Edith, a little heavier, pink, even complexion, wide open blue-gray eyes with heavy black brows, and lashes so long they touch her cheeks.  She has a rope of waving, shining hair that makes a real crown on her head, and it appears almost red in the light.  She is as handsome as any fair woman I ever saw, but she doesn’t know it.  Every time any one pays her a compliment, her mother, who is a caution, discovers that, for some reason, the girl is a fright, so she has no appreciation of her looks.”

“And you were in daily association two months with a girl like that!  How about it, Phil?”