Page:A Girl of the Limberlost.djvu/351

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MRS. COMSTOCK DANCES
331

delivered the package for Philip to a maid, with the note which was to be given him at once.

On the way home through the woods passing some baited trees she collected the captive moths. She entered the kitchen with them so naturally that Mrs. Comstock made no comment. After breakfast Elnora went to her room, cleared away all trace of the night's work and was out in the arbour mounting moths when Ammon came down the road, "I'm tired sitting," she said to her mother. "I think I will walk a few rods and meet him."

"Who's a trump?" called Ammon from afar.

"Well, not you!" retorted Elnora. "Confess that you forgot!"

"Completely!" said Ammon. "But luckily it would not have been fatal. I wrote Polly last week to send Edith something appropriate and handsome to-day, with my card. But that touch from the woods will be mighty effective. Thank you more than I can say. Aunt Anna and I unpacked it to see the basket, and it was a beauty. She says you are always doing things like that."

"Well, I hope not!" laughed Elnora. "If you'd seen me sneaking out before dawn, not to waken mother and coming in with moths to make her think I'd been to the trees, you'd know it was a most especial occasion."

Then Ammon understood two things. Elnora's mother did not know of the early morning trip to the city, and the girl had come to meet him to tell him so.

"You were a brick to do it!" he whispered as he closed