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Low and mud-built, thatched, and with a wattled door, it had a wretched appearance; but the old woman who came to the door was not ill clad. "Blessings on you, holy Father!" she cried; "do I see the child, my lamb, my lady-bird! Would that she may come in time to cheer her poor father!"
There was a red rage in Villon's heart, but he bridled it as he turned upon the interloper contemptuously. "Your pink and white lady-bird," he said to Katherine, and then waving his hand at Noel with a gesture of disdain and dismissal, chanted at him: "Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home." Noel's pink face flushed a poppy red and his white hand went to his sword hilt.
I cannot, in fact, discover that birds ever eat them, their chief real enemy being the little lizard-like larva of the lady-bird, which devours them everywhere greedily in immense numbers.
They will pounce upon the aphides forthwith as a cat pounces upon the mice in a well-stocked barn or farmyard. The two-spotted lady-bird in particular is the determined exterminator of the destructive hop-fly, and is much beloved accordingly by Kentish farmers.
Lady-bird beetles destroy large numbers of plant-lice, and the Asiatic lady-bird has been found to be the natural destroyer of the San Jose scale. These little insects are now being hatched in this country, and it is hoped through them to stamp out the pest. A number of larger insects prey on the smaller ones.
But my pretty lady-bird there had gone into the trap I had set for her, and I kept her in it without her knowing any thing about it. She was quite unsuspecting, and, thanks to my talents as a comedian, and to my love, I finally found out the real purpose of her visit to Rastadt.
"Why the clouded brow, Lady-Bird?" he demanded as he joined me at the little wicker table. "I've had some rather disturbing news," I told him, wondering just how to begin. "The kiddies?" he asked, stopping short. I stared at him closely as I shook my head in answer to that question. He looked leaner and frailer and less robustious than of old. But in my heart of hearts I liked him that way.
"My children you have made me so happy!" exclaimed Mabel, folding them both in her arms. "I never expected to be happy again, and lo! God heaps all this blessedness at my feet." "I thought you were offended with me," said Lina, lifting her bright face to meet the pleasant glance bent upon her. "Offended, darling! I misunderstood you. Why, lady-bird, did you call my son Ralph, Mr. Harrington?"
We threaded the moat by paths between the furze, on the golden honey-hives of which fluttered moths like blue turquoise. The dragon-fly was there, and the lady-bird and little beetles in emerald coats of mail. And over that the lark soared in a wide field of air to hail God at His own very gates.
But the days of her holiday slipped away, and he neither saw nor heard from her. Each morning at breakfast Mr. Martel would say hopefully, "Well, Eleanor will surely grace our humble abode to-day," or, "Something tells me my lady-bird will come to-day!" And each evening Quin would rush home from work buoyed up by the hope that he might find her.
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