Emily nodded. "Of course, Auntie," she said, emphatically. "We couldn't
walk a mile and a half in a storm like this. Of course we must wait.
Where is the shed?"

Winnie S. led the way to the shed. It was a ramshackle affair, open
on one side. General Jackson, tethered to a rusty ring at the back,
whinnied a welcome.

The driver, holding the lantern aloft, looked about him. His two
passengers looked also.

"Well," observed Thankful, "this may have been a shed once, but it's
more like a sieve now. There's more leaks to the roof than there is
boards, enough sight. However, any port in a storm, and we've got the
storm, sartin. All right, Mister What's-your-name, we'll wait."

Winnie S. turned away. Then he turned back again.

"Maybe I'd better leave you the lantern," he said, doubtfully. "I
guess likely I could get along without it and--and 'twould make it more
sociable for you."

He put the lantern down on the earth floor beside them and strode off
into the dark. Mrs. Barnes called after him.

"Ain't there any way of gettin' into that house?" she asked. "It acts as
if 'twas goin' to storm hard as ever and this shed ain't the most--what
did you call it?--sociable place in creation, in spite of the lantern.
If we could only get inside that house--"

Winnie S. interrupted. They could not see him, but there was a queer
note in his voice.

"Get inside!" he repeated. "Get into THAT house this time of night!
Well--well, maybe you could, but I wouldn't do it, not for nothin'. You
better wait in the shed. I'll be back soon as ever I can."

They heard him splashing along the road. Then a gust of wind and a
torrent of rain beating upon the leaky roof drowned all other sounds.
Emily turned to her companion.

"Auntie," she said, "if you and I were superstitious we might think
all this, all that we've been through, was what people call a sign, a
warning. That is what ever so many South Middleboro people would say."

"Humph! if I believed in signs I'd have noticed the weather signs afore
we started. Those are all the 'signs' I believe in and I ought to have
known better than to risk comin' when it looked so threatenin'. I can't
forgive myself for that. However, we did come, and here we are--wherever
'here' is. Now what in the world did that man mean by sayin' we better
not try to get into that house? I don't care what he meant. Give me that
lantern."

"Auntie, where are you going?"

"I'm goin' to take an observation o