“How do you know it was he?” her brother asked.
“Mary Ingle told me when I was talking to her this morning. Dear me, I wish I had Lutie here.”
“I am glad you haven’t,” returned her brother. “Lutie is a perfect baby, and afraid of her own shadow; she’d be worse than no one at all in all this.”
“Gracious!” exclaimed Lettice, “what a report that was! The lightning has struck somewhere very near, but it shook the whole house.”
“That was no lightning stroke,” Mr. Baldwin declared; “it was an explosion of some kind.”
“Oh, I hope nothing has happened to our friends at the Arsenal.”
“It seemed to come from that direction.”
There was no cessation of the terrible storm, and Lettice finally declared that water they must have. “If I only could have brought my bucket safely home,” she said wistfully.
“There is water enough,” Mr. Baldwin said quietly, “when it is coming down in sheets like this. Just set something outside to catch it. Here, I will do it.” And he picked up a water bucket and placed it where it would soon fill.
“What a goose I am!” said Lettice. “Why didn’t I think of that? Did you get very wet?”