ike Gypsy it was,
to make it--when the flames were actually upon her; whether, indeed,
she ought to have kept it, are questions open to discussion. Something
happened just then that saved the trouble of deciding. It was nothing
but a clap of thunder, to be sure, but I wonder if you have any idea how
it sounded to those two girls.

It was a tremendous peal, and it was followed by a fierce
lightning-flash and a second peal, and then by something that the girls
stretched out their arms to with a great cry, as if it had been an angel
from heaven. A shower almost like the bursting of a cloud,--great,
pelting drops, hissing down upon the flaming tree; it seemed like a
solid sheet of water; as if the very flood-gates of heaven were open.

The cruel fire hissed and sputtered, and shot up in angry jets, and died
in puffs of sullen smoke; the glaring bridge blackened slowly; the
pine-tree, swayed by the sudden winds, fell _into_ the forest, and the
ravine was safe. The flames, though not quenched,--it might take hours
to do that,--were thoroughly checked.

And who was that with white, set face, and outstretched hands, springing
over the smoking logs, leaping down into the ravine?

"Oh, Tom, Tom! Oh, father, here we are!"

CHAPTER XI

GRAND TIMES

"To go to Washington?"

"Go to Washington!"

"Did you ever?"

"Never!"

"See the President."

"And the White House and the soldiers."

"And the donkeys and all."

"I know it."

"Father Breynton, if you're not just magnificent!"

This classical conversation took place on a certain Wednesday morning in
that golden June which the picnic ushered in. And such a hurrying and
scampering, and mending and making of dresses, such a trimming of summer
hats and packing of trunks and valises, as there was the rest of that
week!

"You'd better believe we're busy," Gypsy observed, with a very superior
air, to Mrs. Surly, who had "just dropped in to find out what that
flyaway Gypsy had been screechin' round the house so for, these two days
past."

"You'd better believe we have enough to do. Joy's got two white skirts
to have tucked in little bits of tucks, and she's sent to Boston for a
new veil. Mother's made me a whole new dress to wear in the cars, and
I've got a _beau_tiful brown feather for my turban. Besides, we're going
to see the President, and what do you think? Father says there are ever
so many mules in Washington. Won't I sit at the windows and see 'em go
b