rself vigorously. Her
efforts to cool herself were so vigorous that in a very few moments
she was wet with perspiration and much warmer than she had been before
she started to fan. She felt as if she were about to suffocate in this
close room after her glorious little run in the breath of the cold
wind.

"May I open a window, Aunt 'Titia," she begged, "Please, mayn't I? It's
not storming yet, and, and, I'm so hot!"

"Never open a window in a storm, 'Thusa. It's a very dangerous thing to
do."

Miss Letitia iooked at her great-niece just as severely as she knew
how, though the severe effect she intended was somewhat marred by that
perennial twinkle in her eyes and the rosy cloud in her lap below her
round, rosy face. Such a setting made her look more like a grown-up
cherub than anything else at the moment.

The whole room, even with its closed blinds, was suddenly illuminated
by a blinding glow, and a crashing roll of thunder followed immediately
afterwards.

Miss Letitia screamed.

"Mercy on us! How awful! That was so near. Sister 'Liza, you'd better
get a pillow! 'Thusa...!"

Always, in a storm, one of Miss Letitia's first duties was to bulwark
Miss Asenath who could not get pillows for herself, and so the latter
was almost buried in them. Miss Asenath passed one of her many over to
Arethusa, who sat on it obediently. Then the gentle creature on the
couch rewarded her with a pat; by this conveying her loving
intelligence of just how much the sitting on the hot, stuffy protection
Miss Letitia insisted upon was hated, and her recognition of the
magnanimity of doing so with murmuring. But it was Miss Asenath's way
to make anything but good behaviour in her immediate vicinity well-nigh
impossible.

Next, she reached over and took the _Christian Observer_ from
Arethusa's hot grasp, and began herself to fan the overheated girl
very slowly and quietly.

"If you sit quite still, dear," she said softly, "you'll cool off in
just a moment."

Miss Eliza's sturdy uprightness disdained the "safety first" aid of
pillows. She was a fatalist.

"If I'm struck, then I'm struck," she said, with the finality that
admits of no argument.

Arethusa sat quietly on her hassock and under Miss Asenath's gentle
regularity of fanning she cooled off gradually, but her impatience was
in no wise abated. Father's letter was still undiscussed; and Arethusa
wished that Miss Eliza would hurry and tell her about it, and what he
had said.