within her had dimly penetrated his grosser substance.

"Could I hold it--for a minute--in my own hand?" he asked, turning
brick-red.

"Of course you may," said Mary Virginia pleasantly. "I see by the
Padre's face this isn't a rare moth--he's been here all along, only my
eyes have just been opened to him. I don't want him to go in any
collection. I don't want him to go anywhere, except back into the
air--I owe him that for what he taught me. So I'm sure the Padre won't
mind, if you'd like to set him free, yourself."

She put the moth on the man's finger, delicately, for a Catocala is a
swift-winged little chap; it spread out its wings splendidly, as if to
show him its loveliness; then, darting upward, vanished into the cool
green depth of the shrubbery.

"I remember running after a butterfly once, when I was a kid," said
he. "He came flying down our street, Lord knows where from, or why,
and I caught him after a chase. I thought he was the prettiest thing
ever my eyes had seen, and I wanted the worst way in the world to keep
him with me. A brown fellow he was, all sprinkled over with little
splotches of silver, as if there'd been plenty of the stuff on hand,
and it'd been laid on him thick. But after awhile I got to thinking
he'd feel like he was in jail, shut up in my hot fist. I couldn't bear
that, so I ran to the end of the street, to save him from the other
kids, and then I turned him loose and watched him beat it for the sky.
They're pretty things, butterflies. Somehow I always liked them better
than any other living creatures." He was staring after the moth, his
forehead wrinkled. He spoke almost unconsciously, and he certainly had