“Because when the larvæ come out they break the thread. And now perhaps you understand how very useful we are, for all the silks, satins, ribbons, and velvets in the world are made by us.”
Ruth’s eyes grew wide with astonishment.
“It is a big boast, isn’t it?” said a very small straw-coloured moth, flitting rapidly about. “It is a true one, though. My children make cocoons too, and I made one myself, but it was quite unlike a silkworm’s, and I have an idea we are not considered useful either. I do not work among the flowers. I belong to the Wool Exchange, at least that is what somebody said about me once. My eggs will not be laid on a plant, or any growing thing. I shall choose carpet, or fine cloth, or something of that sort, and when my babies hatch they will gnaw away the fibres of the cloth, and eat and eat. Then what they don’t eat they will use to cover themselves with, binding the threads together with silk from their own bodies.”
“I know you, anyway,” said Ruth. “You ate my Winter dress full of holes. At least it was some moths like you.”
“No, my dear, not moths, but their caterpillar babies did the eating.”
“Well, it wasn’t nice, whoever did it,” declared Ruth, with some heat.
“Nice?” repeated Mrs. Clothes Moth. “I suppose it is nice to kill the silkworm babies and make dresses from their cradles, and nice to do a lot of other things that I could mention. I guess you had better not talk.”
Ruth was silent. She felt she had the worst of the argument.
“You must not mind,” whispered a large and beautiful moth whose wings were of many delicate shades of ash-gray marked with black.
Ruth turned to the speaker.