“Do you know,” said Patty to Roger, after they had started, “when I got out then, I felt two or three drops of rain!”
“I do know it,” said Roger, in a low tone, “and I may as well tell you, Patty, that there’s going to be a hard storm before long. Certainly before we reach Pine Branches.”
“How dreadful,” said Patty, who was awed more by the anxious note in Roger’s voice, than by the thought of the rain storm. “Don’t you think it would be better,” she went on, hoping to make a helpful suggestion, “if we should put in to some house until the storm is over? Surely anybody would give us shelter.”
“I don’t see any houses,” said Roger, “and, Patty, I may as well own up, we’re off the road somehow. I think I must have taken the wrong turning at that fork a few miles back. And though I’m not quite sure, yet I feel a growing conviction that we’re lost.”
Although the situation was appalling, for some unexplainable reason Patty couldn’t help giggling.
“Lost!” she exclaimed in a tragic whisper, “in the middle of the night! in a desolate country region! and a storm coming on!”
Patty’s dramatic summary of the situation made Roger laugh too. And their peals of gaiety reassured the three who sat behind.
“What are you laughing at?” said Elise; “I wish you’d tell me, for I’m ’most scared to death, and Roger, it’s beginning to rain.”
“You don’t say so!” said Roger, in a tone of polite surprise, “why then we must put on the curtains.” He stopped the car, and jumping down from his place, began to arrange the curtains which were always carried in case of rain.
Mr. Farrington helped him, and as he did so, remarked, “Looks like something of a storm, my boy.”