nhaled the sweetness of flowers
alive and dying, of new-mown hay. Annie glanced at him and an angelic
look came over her face. At that moment the sweetness of her nature
seemed actually visible.

"He is tired, poor boy!" she thought. She also thought that probably
Benny felt the heat more because he was stout. Then she raked faster
and faster. She fairly flew over the yard, raking the severed grass
and flowers into heaps. The air grew more sultry. The sun was not yet
clouded, but the northwest was darker and rumbled ominously.

The girls in the sitting-room continued to chatter and sew. One of them
might have come out to help this little sister toiling alone, but Annie
did not think of that. She raked with the uncomplaining sweetness of an
angel until the storm burst. The rain came down in solid drops, and the
sky was a sheet of clamoring flame. Annie made one motion toward the
barn, but there was no use. The hay was not half cocked. There was no
sense in running for covers. Benny was up and lumbering into the house,
and her sisters were shutting windows and crying out to her. Annie
deserted her post and fled before the wind, her pink skirts lashing her
heels, her hair dripping.

When she entered the sitting-room her sisters, Imogen, Eliza, Jane, and
Susan, were all there; also her father, Silas, tall and gaunt and gray.
To the Hempsteads a thunder-storm partook of the nature of a religious
ceremony. The family gathered together, and it was understood that they
were all offering prayer and recognizing God as present on the wings of
the tempest. In reality they were all very nervous in thunder-storms,
with the exception of Annie. She always sent up a little silent petition
that her sisters and brother and father, and the horse and dog and cat,
might escape danger, although she had never been quite sure that she was
not wicked in including the dog and cat. She was surer about the horse
because he was the means by which her father made pastoral calls upon
his distant sheep. Then afterward she just sat with the others and
waited until the storm was over and it was time to open windows and see
if the roof had leaked. Today, however, she was intent upon the hay. In
a lull of the tempest she spoke.

"It is a pity," she said, "that I was not able to get the hay cocked and
the covers on."

Then Imogen turned large, sarcastic blue eyes upon her. Imogen was
considered a beauty, pink and white, golden-haired, and dimpled, with