ng, "Those who have the
care of you have their hands full," she hurried on; but with all her
haste she was like one who had been dipped in a well before she got in.

Almost the moment in which the two had parted, the shower had come down
in right good earnest, driving and gathering and splashing the dust up
on Betty's white stockings, and causing her to be very glad that she
had not put on her best-made bonnet and new black ribbons. Betty had
never worn a coloured bonnet in her life.

In the meantime Miss Bessy was flying along the field, throwing up the
wet at every step from the long grass. The pins in her shoes at first
acted as spurs, pricking her for many steps, and then crooking and
giving way; so that she had the comfort of running slipshod the rest of
the way. Her shoes, being of stuff, were so thoroughly soaked, in a
little time, that they became quite heavy. The gate at the end of the
field was locked, of course; who ever came to the end of a field in a
pelting shower, and did not find it locked? It was a five-barred gate,
and Bessy could have got over it easily if John had not most carefully
interlaced the two upper bars with thorns and brambles--for what
purpose we don't know, but so it was.

Bessy tried to pull some of them out, and in so doing thoroughly soaked
her gloves, and then only succeeded in pulling aside one or two of
them; but she mounted the gate, and in coming down, her foot slipping,
she fell flat on the ground, leaving part of her frock on the thorns,
which at the time she did not perceive.

"It can't be helped," she thought, as she rose again, and ran on to the
house without further misfortune. She thought herself lucky in getting
in by the front door without being seen; and her aunt was not at home,
which was another piece of luck, she believed; and she hastened to
change her dress, cramming all her wet things into a closet in the room
used for hanging up frocks and gowns when taken off. She did not, as it
happened, throw her frock and bonnet on the floor of the closet; and
she thought she had been very careful when she hung the frock on a peg
and the bonnet over it. She had some trouble in getting off her wet
gloves, which stuck as close to her hands as if they had been part of
them; and these, with the shoes and other inferior parts of her dress,
found their places on the floor of the closet. They were all out of the
way before her aunt could come; for though it had ceased to rain as