thing to make him go on again.

So she started off down a road leading out of the turnpike thoroughfare
on which the carrier was travelling.

She was a tall, somewhat angular woman, with determination written on
her face. In one hand she carried a number of parcels mysteriously
tied together, and in the other hand her very bulgy umbrella, which she
used as a walking stick, and staffed her way with it solemnly along the
dim country road.

It was a summer evening, and there had been a heavy storm during the
day. "Dear! dear! how dirty it be, sure_ly_," she said, as she
proceeded. "Bad enough to be dirty in winter, but in summer it's
disgraceful! Ha! how sweet that woodbine do smell! Now, if I could
get a piece for the children!"

She stopped and began to poke about in the hedge with her bulging
umbrella. At last, after much reaching and pulling, she obtained a
small piece of the sweet-smelling honeysuckle, stuck it in her large,
old-fashioned bonnet, where it nodded like a plume, and pursued her way
in triumph.

"Soon be home now," she said, to encourage herself. "Won't Master Alfy
be pleased with the woodbine!"

Suddenly she paused again. What was that noise?

She was at the corner of a lane branching off from the road she had
been pursuing. Dimly in her ears sounded a low, sullen roar--a roar
something like the murmuring noise of a mighty city heard in a quiet
and distant suburb.

But here was no mighty city. She was deep in the heart of the quiet
country. What was that noise?

"I never heerd the like afore at this place," she muttered to herself.
"Anyhow, I'll get on home. I shan't be long now!"

A few turns in the road brought her in sight of the house. But she
stood suddenly quite still, and stared in amazement and alarm. Was
that indeed the house she had left quite safely in the smiling sunlight
of yesterday morning?

Now, she saw a turbid sheet of water surrounding it; and here and there
the tops of shrubs and trees and hedges, looking strange and melancholy
as they rose out of the flood. The dull roar she had heard previously
now sounded louder than before, but she did not think of that. The
children were her anxiety. "Where are the children?" she cried.

The excitement and alarm wrought upon her feelings, and she screamed
aloud--

"Children! children! Where are the children?"

Perhaps it was the best thing she could have done. Anyhow, it had a
good effect. Lights quickly ap