isn't so wet after all."

Illustration:
"Master Ted, very wet indeed, made his appearance with rosy cheeks
and a general look of self-satisfaction."--P. 194.

And an hour or two later, dried and consoled and sitting round the
kitchen table for an extra good tea to which Mrs. Crosby had invited
them, all the children agreed that after all the expedition had not
turned out badly.

But the weather had changed there was no doubt; for the time at least
the sunny days were over. The party in the farm-house had grown smaller
too, for the uncles had had to leave, and even the children's father had
been summoned away unexpectedly to London. And a day or two after the
children's picnic their mother stood at the window rather anxiously
looking out at the ever-falling rain.

"It really looks like as if it would _never_ leave off," she said,
and there was some reason for her feeling distressed. She had hoped for
a letter from the children's father that day, and very probably it was
lying at the two-miles-and-a-half-off post-office, waiting for some one
to fetch it. For it was not one of the postman's days for coming round
by the farm-house; that only happened twice a week, but hitherto this
had been of little consequence to the farm-house visitors. Their letters
perhaps had not been of such importance as to be watched for with much
anxiety, and in the fine weather it was quite a pleasant little walk to
the post-office by the fields and the stepping-stones across the river.
But all this rain had so swollen the river that now the stepping-stones
were useless; there was nothing for it but to take the long round by the
road; and this added to the difficulty in another way, for it was not
by any means every day that Mr. Crosby or his son were going in that
direction, or that they could, at this busy season, spare a man so long
off work. So the children's mother could not see how she was to get her
letter if this rain continued--at least not for several days, for the
old postman had called yesterday--he would not take the round of the
Skensdale farm for another three or four days at least, and even then,
the post-office people were now so accustomed to some of the "gentry"
calling for their letters themselves, that it was doubtful, not certain
at least, if they would think of giving them to the regular carrier. And
with some anxiety, for her husband had gone to London on business of
importance, Ted's mother went to bed.

Early