He stood with both arms about her neck. The bright, buff freckles showed up clearly on his pale little face. But with underlip thrust out and brows drawn down, his eyelids winking with every flash of lightning, he looked the storm firmly in the face, because "Muvvah" had begged him to be a man.
Charlotte, coming upstairs to see that all window-shutters were properly closed, found them kneeling there together. She had hardly appeared before there came a flash and crash in one, so appalling that Bobby could resist no longer. He flattened himself against his mother's breast and shouted clamorously to be removed.
Then Sophy turned and slipped his hand into Charlotte's. An inspiration had come to her.
"There!" she said. "Stay safe with Aunt Chartie and watch mother! Mother's not afraid!"
The next moment she was out in the scented downpour. To and fro she ran, laughing. Her sleeveless wrapper of white muslin was soon soaked through. The wind beat it close to her in fine, rippled lines. She looked like a living figure from Tanagra. And she had never felt anything more exquisite than this cool, pelting of summer rain against her whole body.
Now and then flares of lightning would illumine her, throwing her light, drenched figure into relief against the wind-blown leaves. She seemed dancing to great tambourines of thunder. Bobby, quite made over by his mother's bravery, gazed on enraptured. She called to him as she whirled:
"Look, Bobby! See how mother loves God's splendid storm!"
Suddenly the boy broke from Charlotte's grasp. He sprang out into the tempest towards his mother.
"Me, too!" he shouted. "Viva Dio!" (Long live God!)