her
silver pans. Then they kindled up a fire and cooked some beautiful
milk porridge for the poor people in the yard.

It was a beautiful warm moonlight night, and all the winds were sweet
with roses and pinks; so the people could not suffer out of doors; but
the next morning it rained.

"O, mother!" said Nan, "it is raining, and what will the poor people
do?"

Dame Clementina would never have seen her way out of this difficulty,
had not Dame Golding cried out that her bonnet was getting wet, and
she wanted an umbrella.

"Why, you must go around to their houses, of course, and get their
umbrellas for them," said Dame Clementina; "but first, give ours to
that old man on horseback." She did not know her father, so many years
had passed since she had seen him, and he had altered so.

So Nan carried out their great yellow umbrella to the count, and went
around to the others' houses for their own umbrellas. It was pitiful
enough to see them standing all alone behind the doors. She could not
find three extra ones for the three robbers, and she felt badly about
that.

Somebody suggested, however, that milk-pans turned over their heads
would keep the rain off their slouched hats, at least; so she got
a silver milk-pan for an umbrella for each. They made such frantic
efforts to get away then, that they looked like jumping-jacks; but it
was of no use.

[Illustration: NAN RETURNS WITH THE UMBRELLAS.]

Poor Dame Clementina and Nan after they had given the milk porridge to
the people, and done all they could for their comfort, stood staring
disconsolately out of the window at them under their dripping
umbrellas. The yard was fairly green and black and blue and yellow
with umbrellas. They wept at the sight, but they could not think
of any way out of the difficulty. The people themselves might have
suggested one, had they known the real cause; but they did not dare to
tell them how they were responsible for all the trouble; they seemed
so angry.

About noon Nan spied their most particular friend, Dame Elizabeth,
coming. She lived a little way out of the village. Nan saw her
approaching the gate through the rain and mist, with her great blue
umbrella and her long blue double cape and her poke bonnet; and she
cried out in the greatest dismay: "O, mother, mother! there is our
dear Dame Elizabeth coming; she will have to stop too!"

Then they watched her with beating hearts. Dame Elizabeth stared with
astonishment at the p