t when Barney saw Rudolph walking and
pulling he began to walk and pull too.

Meantime, while Patrick and his wife were thinking that the children
had had plenty of time to reach home before the storm, there was great
anxiety in the two homes where those three dear children lived. Patrick
the coachman and Philip the groom had been sent with the wagonette
by the main road to Patrick Kirk's--Patrick to bring the children and
Philip to take charge of Barney, but as the children were coming home,
or rather trying to come home, by the ford, of course they missed them.

All the while the storm was growing in violence, and suddenly for about
five minutes great hailstones came beating down till the lawn was fairly
white with them, and the panes of glass in the green-house roof at
Oakdene cracked and broke beneath them. "And those three blessed
children are probably out in it all," thought Tattine's Mother, standing
pale and trembling at her window, and watching the road which the
wagonette would have to come. And then what did she see but Barney,
trotting bravely up the hill, with the geese still craning their necks
through the laths of the cage, but the reins dragging through the mud of
the roadway, and with no children in the little cart. Close behind him
came the wagonette, which Barney was cleverly managing to keep well
ahead of, but Mrs. Gerald soon discovered that neither were the children
in that either. In an instant she was down the stairs and out on the
porch to meet Patrick at the door.

"It isn't possible you have no word of the children?" she cried
excitedly.

"Patrick Kirk says they started home by the ford in time to reach here
an hour before the storm," gasped Patrick, "but we came back by the ford
ourselves and not a sign have we seen of them, till Barney ran out of
the woods ahead of us five minutes ago."

And then a dreadful thought flashed through her mind. Could it be
possible they had been drowned in the ford? But that moment her eyes
saw something that made her heart leap for joy, something that looked
drowned enough, but wasn't. Rudolph was running up the hill as fast as
his soaking clothing would let him, and, reaching the door breathless
enough, he sank down on the floor of the porch.

"Oh, Mrs. Gerald," he said, as soon as he could catch his breath, "Mabel
and Tattine are all right; they're safe in the log play-house at the
Cornwells', but we've had an awful fright. Is Barney home? When the hail