Chapter 5

During the rest of the week the rainstorm, that had started all the trouble, continued to hover ominously, breaking forth day after day in fierce, petulant showers. Out at Thornwood the aspect was most dreary; the low-lying ground in front of the house was under water for a quarter of a mile, trees, limp and draggled, stood disconsolate in an unfamiliar lake, the bridge below the dam was washed away, and horses going to the creek for water were constantly being caught by the current, and having to be rescued by ropes. In the flower garden dirty-faced little blossoms lay in the mud, vines trailed across the paths, all the fragrance and color seemed to be soaked out of everything by those continuous, pelting showers.

Within the house it was not much gayer. The front hall, with its steep, narrow stairway, and floor-covering of highly ornate landscape oilcloth, was in a perpetual twilight. An occasional glint from white woodwork, or the gold molding of a picture, strove in vain to dispel the gloom. The parlor, at the right of the hall, was sepulchral with its window cracks stuffed with paper, and the shutters securely closed. To be sure, the living-room on the other side of the hall did its best to look cheerful, but even that comfortable spot with its low ceiling and battered mahogany furniture, its high cupboards flanking the wide, stone fireplace, and its friendly litter of every-day necessities, was not equal to the occasion.

One afternoon when the Colonel came in from the chicken yard where he and Uncle Jimpson had constituted themselves a salvage corps, he surprised Miss Lady sitting in the dusk on the floor before the empty fireplace, with suspicious traces of tears upon her face.

“Make a light,” blustered the Colonel; “you mustn’t sit around in the dark like this, you know. Where’s my pipe?”

She sprang up and found the missing article, and with a great show of cheerfulness lit the lamp and held the match out for him to light his pipe.

“What’s the matter?” asked the Colonel; “sort of trembly, ain’t you?”

“Me? Watch me!” She held the match very straight and very tight, then as it wavered, blew it out and dropped it down his sleeve. “There’s some mail over there on the table for you, Daddy dear. Noah brought it down from town in his buggy.”

She said it very carelessly, and even enumerated the contents as she handed it to him:

“Two circulars, a letter from the seed man, the Confederate Veteran and the newspapers.”

“Nothing for you?”

“Nothing.”

Under his scrutiny Miss Lady’s eyes fell, and she turned abruptly to the window, while the Colonel, mouth open, pipe in hand, watched her.

He had never seen his girl like this in her life! What business had her lip to tremble in the middle of a sentence, or her eyes to brim with sudden tears, making her turn her back on her adoring Dad, and busy herself with the window curtain?

Of course it is upsetting to have a friend, whom you have been seeing daily for a couple of weeks, get into trouble such as young Donald Morley had fallen into. It made even the Colonel feel bad, he didn’t deny it. But what business had the kitten to be taking it all so to heart? Why was she called upon to champion this young stranger’s cause so hotly, to resent every insinuation, and to contend! passionately that he would be able to explain everything? Morley had not explained. Three days had dragged past and nothing had been heard from him. Nothing probably would be heard from him! The Colonel wanted to feel victorious, but he did! not. Instead, he cast anxious and sympathetic glances at the back of his daughter’s head, and surreptitiously wiped his small snub nose on the corner of his red-bordered handkerchief.