It had been the greatest possible treat to
be allowed to return to the country for a week, but now my one
idea was to go home with my treasure. None of my people had seen
a sight like that. If they had, they would have told me.
Borrowing a two-gallon stone jar from the tenant's wife, I searched
the garden for flowers sufficiently rare for lining. Nothing so
pleased me as some gorgeous deep red peony blooms. Never having
been allowed to break the flowers when that was my mother's home,
I did not think of doing it because she was not there to know.
I knelt and gathered all the fallen petals that were fresh, and
then spreading my apron on the ground, jarred the plant, not harder
than a light wind might, and all that fell in this manner it seemed
right to take. The selection was very pleasing, for the yellow
glaze of the jar, the rich red of the petals, and the grey
velvet of my prize made a picture over which I stood trembling in
delight. The moth was promptly christened the Half-luna, because
my father had taught me that luna was the moon, and the half moons
on the wings were its most prominent markings.
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