nts.

"Yes," exulted Arethusa, "I know some Poetry!"

She read on, greatly cheered.

"Conversation," continued the quaint little pamphlet of advice, "is
best carried on if some definite topic is introduced. This,
however, must he accomplished with ease and grace, lest a feeling
of awkwardness be aroused."

Arethusa descended to the library and hunted up a dictionary, to look
for "topic."

She discovered it to be:

"The subject of any distinct portion of a discourse; a theme or
subject as of talk or thought."

This was fairly clear. "I might find a Topic," she thought, for she
surely could not quote poetry all through the evening. "I might read
about something I could talk about."

Her eyes roved restlessly down the same row of the bookcase where she
had got the dictionary. It was nearly all Encyclopedia, stretching away
in a formidable array of volumes exactly alike, except for the tiny
gold lettering across the center of the back. She lifted out one at
random, the "L's," and it opened accommodatingly of its own accord,
when its heaviness slid out of her grasp, to "Lepidoptera." Which was a
strange and almost unpronounceable word; but the pictures which
accompanied this text were somewhat explanatory of its meaning, being
all of familiar looking butterflies and moths.

Arethusa grew interested. She spread herself comfortably out on the
floor, there in the corner, and began to read; and she gleaned as she
read several facts that might "with profit" be introduced into a
conversation.

For instance; she learned that there were over fifty different families
of these Lepidoptera, and that all of these family divisions were
divided also, so many times that they have never all been counted or
classified; that all common moths and butterflies belonged under this
big head, as well as some "cousins," so aristocratic and so wonderful
in their colorings that Arethusa exclaimed aloud over their beauty in
the large plate on the page just opposite; and that every single,
solitary member of every family, whether of high or low degree, came
from some sort of caterpillar. She discovered that these Lepidoptera
had traits of character which still further differentiated them. They
were exceedingly finicky about their food, she read; the meat of one
variety seemed to be the deadly poison of another. And some of them
could live under the water; some drowned in a drop of rain.

She committed to memory som