the house with Bobby. She took
him to the upper hall, and knelt down before a door that opened upon the
railed roof of the front portico.

"Ah, be a man, Bobby," she pleaded. "You're the only man mother's got in
all the world."

He stood with both arms about her neck. The bright, buff freckles showed
up clearly on his pale little face. But with underlip thrust out and
brows drawn down, his eyelids winking with every flash of lightning, he
looked the storm firmly in the face, because "Muvvah" had begged him to
be a man.

Charlotte, coming upstairs to see that all window-shutters were properly
closed, found them kneeling there together. She had hardly appeared
before there came a flash and crash in one, so appalling that Bobby
could resist no longer. He flattened himself against his mother's breast
and shouted clamorously to be removed.

Then Sophy turned and slipped his hand into Charlotte's. An inspiration
had come to her.

"There!" she said. "Stay safe with Aunt Chartie and watch mother!
Mother's not afraid!"

The next moment she was out in the scented downpour. To and fro she ran,
laughing. Her sleeveless wrapper of white muslin was soon soaked
through. The wind beat it close to her in fine, rippled lines. She
looked like a living figure from Tanagra. And she had never felt
anything more exquisite than this cool, pelting of summer rain against
her whole body.

Now and then flares of lightning would illumine her, throwing her light,
drenched figure into relief against the wind-blown leaves. She seemed
dancing to great tambourines of thunder. Bobby, quite made over by his
mother's bravery, gazed on enraptured. She called to him as she whirled:

"Look, Bobby! See how mother loves God's splendid storm!"

Suddenly the boy broke from Charlotte's grasp. He sprang out into the
tempest towards his mother.

"Me, too!" he shouted. "_Viva Dio!_" (Long live God!)

* * * * *

Sophy was still smiling to herself over this "_Viva Dio!_" as she
braided her damp hair into a loose plait before going down to supper.
The placid life at Sweet-Waters was very old-fashioned. During the hot
weather there was no dinner served, only this light, simple meal at
seven o'clock.

"How like me Bobby is," she thought. "I'm always rebelling against the
Deity, and then crying '_Viva Dio!_' in the end."

The storm had passed. She went and stood at her window, drawing in deep
breaths of rain-freshened air,