in great streams; but it all went by in white,
wavy drifts; it seemed to rain from south to north across the
country,--not to fall from heaven to earth; we wondered if it _would_
fall anywhere. It beat against the house; that stood up in its way; it
rained straight in at the window-sills and under the doors; we ran
about the house with cloths and sponges to sop it up from cushions and
carpets.

"I say, Mrs. Housekeeper!" called out Stephen from above, "look out
for father's dressing-room! It's all afloat,--hair-brushes out on
voyages of discovery, and a horrid little kelpie sculling round on a
hat-box!"

Father's dressing-room was a windowed closet, in the corner space
beside the deep, old-fashioned chimney. It had hooks and shelves in
one end, and a round shaving-stand and a chair in the other. We had to
pull down all his clothes and pile them upon chairs, and stop up the
window with an old blanket. A pane was cracked, and the wind, although
its force was slanted here, had blown it in, and the fine driven spray
was dashed across, diagonally, into the very farthest corner.

In the room a gentle cascade descended beside the chimney, and a
picture had to be taken down. Down stairs the dining-room sofa,
standing across a window, got a little lake in the middle of it before
we knew. The side door blew open with a bang, and hats, coats, and
shawls went scurrying from their pegs, through sitting-room and hall,
like a flight of scared, living things. We were like a little garrison
in a great fort, besieged at all points at once. We had to bolt
doors,--latches were nothing,--and bar shutters. And when we could
pause indoors, what a froth and whirl we had to gaze out at!

The grass, all along the fields, was white, prostrate; swept fiercely
one way; every blade stretched out helpless upon its green face. The
little pear-trees, heavy with fruit, lay prone in literal "windrows."
The great ashes and walnuts twisted and writhed, and had their
branches stripped upward of their leaves, as a child might draw a head
of blossoming grass between his thumb and finger. The beautiful elms
were in a wild agony; their graceful little bough-tips were all
snapped off and whirled away upon the blast, leaving them in a ragged
blight. A great silver poplar went over by the fence, carrying the
posts and palings with it, and upturned a huge mass of roots and
earth, that had silently cemented itself for half a century beneath
the sward. Up and d