CHAPTER XVI.
The butterflies, the poor butterflies that have gone out of fashion in
these days, played, I am ashamed to say, a large part in my life
during my childhood, as did also the flies, beetles and lady-bugs and
all the insects that are found upon flowers and in the grass. Although
it gave me a great deal of pain to kill them, I was making a
collection of them, and I was almost always seen with a butterfly net
in my hand. Those flying about in our yard, that had strayed our way
from the country, were not very beautiful it must be confessed, but I
had the garden and woods of Limoise which all the summer long was a
hunting-ground ever full of surprises and wonders.
But the caricatures by Topffer upon this subject made me thoughtful;
and when Lucette one day caught me with several butterflies in my hat,
and in her incomparably mocking voice called me, "Mr. Cryptogram," I
was much humiliated.
