House-cleaning time had now arrived.  My new carpets were taken up and packed away, to give place to the cooler matting.  Our winter clothing also received attention, and was deposited in chests and closets for the summer, duly provided with all needful protection from moths.  After this came the calm of rest and self-satisfaction.

One day, about the middle of July, a lady friend called in to see me.

“That’s a neat sofa, Mrs. Smith,” said she, in the pause of a conversation.

“I think it very neat,” was my answer.

“It’s made from the same pattern with one that I had.  One that I always liked, and from which I was sorry to part.”

“You sold it?” said I.

“Yes.  I sent it to auction.”

“Ah!  Why so?”

“I discovered, this spring, that the moth had got into it.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes.  They showed themselves, every day, in such numbers, in my parlors, that I became alarmed for my carpets.  I soon traced their origin to the sofa, which was immediately packed off to auction.  I was sorry to part with it; but, there was no other effective remedy.”

“You lost on the sale, I presume,” I ventured to remark.

“Yes; that was to be expected.  It cost sixty dollars, and brought only thirty.  But this loss was to be preferred to the destruction such an army of moth as it was sending forth, would have occasioned.”

I changed the subject, dexterously, having heard quite enough about the sofa to satisfy me that my bargain was likely to prove a bad one.

All the summer, I was troubled with visions of moth-eaten carpets, furs, shawls, and overcoats; and they proved to be only the foreshadowing of real things to come, for, when, in the fall, the contents of old chests, boxes, drawers, and dark closets were brought forth to the light, a state of affairs truly frightful to a housekeeper, was presented.  One of the breadths of my handsome carpet had the pile so eaten off in conspicuous places, that no remedy was left but the purchase and substitution of a new one, at a cost of nearly ten dollars.  In dozens of places the texture of the carpet was eaten entirely through.  I was, as my lady readers may naturally suppose, very unhappy at this.  But, the evil by no means found a limit here.  On opening my fur boxes, I found that the work of destruction had been going on there also.  A single shake of the muff, threw little fibres and flakes of fur in no stinted measure upon the air; and, on dashing my hand hard against it, a larger mass was detached, showing the skin bare and white beneath.  My furs were ruined.  They had cost seventy dollars, and were not worth ten!

A still further examination into our stock of winter clothing, showed that the work of destruction had extended to almost every article.  Scarcely any thing had escaped.