ing. All the gracious sunshine
of yesterday is obliterated, forgotten, while in its place the sullen
raindrops dash themselves with suppressed fury against the
window-panes. Huge drops they are, swollen with the hidden rage of many
days, that fall, and burst heavily, and make the casements tremble.

Outside, the flowers droop and hang their pretty heads in sad wonder at
this undeserved Nemesis that has overtaken them. Along the sides of the
graveled paths small rivulets run frightened. There is no song of birds
in all the air. Only the young short grass uprears itself, and,
drinking in with eager greediness the welcome but angry shower, refuses
to bend its neck beneath the yoke.

"How I hate a wet day!" says Luttrell, moodily, for the twentieth time,
staring blankly out of the deserted school-room window, where he and
Molly have been yawning, moping for the last half-hour.

"Do you? I love it," replies she, out of a sheer spirit of
contradiction; as, if there is one thing she utterly abhors it is the
idea of rain.

"If I said I loved it, _you_ would say the reverse," says he,
laughing, not feeling equal to the excitement of a quarrel.

"Without doubt," replies she, laughing too: so that a very successful
opening is rashly neglected. "Surely it cannot keep on like this all
day," she says, presently, in a dismal tone, betraying by her manner
the falsity of her former admiration: "we shall have a dry winter if it
continues much longer. Has any wise man yet discovered how much rain
the clouds are capable of containing at one time? It would be such a
blessing if they had: then we might know the worst, and make up our
minds to it."

"Drop a line to the clerk of the weather office; he might make it his
business to find out if you asked him."

"Is that a joke?" with languid disgust. "And you professed yourself
indignant with me yesterday when I perpetrated a really superior one!
You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I would not condescend to anything
so feeble."

"That reminds me I have never yet paid you off for that misdemeanor.
Now, when time is hanging so heavily on my hands, is a most favorable
opportunity to pay the debt. I embrace it. And you too. So 'prepare for
cavalry.'"

"A fig for all the hussars in Europe," cries Molly, with indomitable
courage.

* * * * *

Meantime, Letitia and John in the morning room--that in a grander house
would have been designated a boud