go home."

"Was it an avalanche?" demanded Mrs. Batt, in a deep and shaky voice.
"Are we in any immediate danger, young man?"

I said that it was probably a flying-star which had happened to strike
the lake and explode.

"What an awful region!" wailed Miss Dingleheimer. "I've had my money's
worth. I wish to go back to New York at once. I'll begin to dress
immediately--"

"It might be a million years before another meteor falls in this
latitude," I said, soothingly.

"Or it might be ten minutes," sobbed Miss Dingleheimer. "What do _you_
know about it, anyway! I want to go home. I'm putting on my stockings
now. I'm getting dressed as fast as I can--"

Her voice was blotted out in a mighty crash from the lake. Appalled, I
whirled on my heel, just in time to see another huge jet of water rise
high in the starlight, another, another, until the entire lake was but
a cluster of gigantic geysers exploding a hundred feet in the air, while
through them, falling back into the smother of furious foam, great
silvery bulks dropped crashing, one after another.

I don't know how long the incredible vision lasted; the woods roared with
the infernal pandemonium, echoed and re-echoed from mountain to mountain;
the tree-tops fairly stormed spray, driving it in sheets through the
leaves; and the shores of the lake spouted surf long after the last vast,
silvery shape had fallen back again into the water.

As my senses gradually recovered, I found myself supporting Mrs. Batt on
one arm and the Reverend Dr. Jones upon my bosom. Both had fainted. I
released them with a shudder and turned to look for Brown.

Somebody had swooned in his arms, too.

[Illustration: "Somebody had swooned in his arms, too."]

He was not noticing me, and as I approached him I heard him say something
resembling the word "kitten."

In spite of my demoralization, another fear seized me, and I drew nearer
and peered closely at what he was holding so nobly in his arms. It was,
as I supposed, Angelica White.

I don't know whether my arrival occultly revived her, for as I stumbled
over a tent-peg she opened her blue eyes, and then disengaged herself
from Brown's arms.

"Oh, I am _so_ frightened," she murmured. She looked at me sideways when
she said it.

"Come," said I coldly to Brown, "let Miss White retire and lie down. This
meteoric shower is over and so is the danger."

He evinced a desire to further soothe and minister to Miss White, but she
said,