o auction. I
was sorry to part with it; but, there was no other effective
remedy."

"You lost on the sale, I presume," I ventured to remark.

"Yes; that was to be expected. It cost sixty dollars, and brought
only thirty. But this loss was to be preferred to the destruction
such an army of moth as it was sending forth, would have
occasioned."

I changed the subject, dexterously, having heard quite enough about
the sofa to satisfy me that my bargain was likely to prove a bad
one.

All the summer, I was troubled with visions of moth-eaten carpets,
furs, shawls, and overcoats; and they proved to be only the
foreshadowing of real things to come, for, when, in the fall, the
contents of old chests, boxes, drawers, and dark closets were
brought forth to the light, a state of affairs truly frightful to a
housekeeper, was presented. One of the breadths of my handsome
carpet had the pile so eaten off in conspicuous places, that no
remedy was left but the purchase and substitution of a new one, at a
cost of nearly ten dollars. In dozens of places the texture of the
carpet was eaten entirely through. I was, as my lady readers may
naturally suppose, very unhappy at this. But, the evil by no means
found a limit here. On opening my fur boxes, I found that the work
of destruction had been going on there also. A single shake of the
muff, threw little fibres and flakes of fur in no stinted measure
upon the air; and, on dashing my hand hard against it, a larger mass
was detached, showing the skin bare and white beneath. My furs were
ruined. They had cost seventy dollars, and were not worth ten!

A still further examination into our stock of winter clothing,
showed that the work of destruction had extended to almost every
article. Scarcely any thing had escaped.

Troubled, worried, and unhappy as I was, I yet concealed from Mr.
Smith the origin of all this ruin. He never suspected our cheap sofa
for a moment. After I had, by slow degrees, recovered from my
chagrin and disappointment, my thoughts turned, naturally, upon a
disposition of the sofa. What was to be done with it? As to keeping
it over another season, that was not to be thought of for a moment.
But, would it be right, I asked myself, to send it back to auctions
and let it thus go into the possession of some housekeeper, as
ignorant of its real character as I had been? I found it very hard
to reconcile my conscience to such a disposition of the sofa. And
there was still a