As she filled her arms
with them, she recalled with a smile the different purpose for which,
dragged at the heels of one of Henry's enthusiasms, she had gathered
them several years before.
At that period Henry had been a mighty entomologist; and, as the late
summer came on, he and all available sisters would set out, armed with
butterfly-nets and other paraphernalia, just before twilight, to the
nearest woodland, where they would proceed to daub the trees with an
intoxicating preparation of honey and rum,--a temptation to which moths
were declared in text-books to be incapable of resistance. Then, as
night fell, Henry would light his bull's-eye, and cautiously visit the
various snares. It was a sight worth seeing to come upon those little
night-clubs of drunken and bewildered moths, hanging on to the sweetness
with tragic gluttony,--an easy prey for Henry's eager fingers, which, as
greedy of them as they of the honey, would seize and thrust them into
the lethal chamber, in the form of a cigar-box loosely filled with
bruised laurel leaves, which hung by a strap from his shoulder.
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