"Oh, dear! I wish we hadn't come at all," sighed Dimple. "I wish we were safe at home. Mamma will be so worried, for she won't know where we are. I do wish we hadn't come."
Florence was very uncomfortable, but she tried to brave it out. "Anyhow," she said, "it's a great deal better than to be out in the storm. I am sure auntie will be very glad when she knows we were safe here, and it isn't as if you had come to a perfectly strange house. The Atkinsons are your friends, and they won't mind a bit our coming here for shelter. I know they won't. They'd be very hard-hearted if they did mind."
"Yes, I s'pose so," returned Dimple, somewhat comforted.
"Very likely your mamma isn't bothering at all about us," Florence went on. "She probably hasn't gone home herself, on account of the storm."
They had been conversing together at the top of the stairs, and now made their way to the dining-room, where, after opening the shutters, they stood looking out at the rain. The peals of thunder had died away into distant mutterings, but it was still raining hard.
"Somehow we always get into trouble when it rains," Dimple remarked.
"Don't let's talk about that," returned Florence. "See how the raindrops dance up and down. Little water fairies they are. Don't they look as if they were having a good time?"
"Yes; but I'm getting hungry. I wonder if it isn't most dinner time. Do you suppose it will rain all afternoon, Florence?"
"I don't know. If it holds up we'll have to run between the drops."
"But how can we get out? We could never climb down that sopping wet tree, and we would be very wicked to leave any part of the house down here unfastened. Some one might see us and try to get in."