Lady Caergwent hesitated; but he would take no refusal, and having been told it was white, had three roundish sort of petals, and arrow leaves, and grew in the water, the lazy youth, who would seldom move an inch in a sister's service, went striding down the hill side, with his coat over his shoulder, and his pugaree streaming behind him. Cherry was afraid he would incur Lance's fate; but Felix laughed, and said he was glad to see he could do anything for anybody; and besides, the sun was becoming less fierce.

So Cherry hastily sketched his retreating figure as a feature in the drawing she annually made of the group at the quarry during the music. Gertrude May had a fair ear, and good though not much trained voice, and she was exceedingly happy, for even without Lance the Underwoods' singing was a remarkable and beautiful thing. To make William into Polyphemus, and hear him thunder out 'Ruddier than the cherry,' while Felix and Angela served as his Acis and Galatea, was always a part of the programme, and it was all Wilmet enjoyed, for were not her boys—even though they were hers—boys of the period? Had not her son Edward come, against her better judgment, because his papa wished it? and had not his combined fatigue and restlessness come to a pitch where there was nothing for it but to take him away to the farm-house, and let him have the sleep he had missed in the forenoon?

Then, even in her first outline, Cherry missed three figures; and when, after completing her general sketch, she returned to touch up the individuals, Kester, who had been portrayed running up and down a mound with the dogs, was asleep against his father; nothing was to be seen of Will but a pair of black knees peeping out of the bracken, and the head of Scamp's brother Chaff, who was sitting on his breast; and Lady Caergwent had vanished altogether. She was further becoming sensible that the shadows were less sharp, the light less clear, the heat heavier, and presently that a great black cloud had mounted far into the sky behind the quarry and the hill; and beginning to think that Clement's prognostications might be justified she was waiting for the end of Lance's setting of 'Mont Blanc is the King of Mountains,' to call attention to the fact that Penbeacon was borrowing his vest of cloud, when the announcement was made by a vivid flash of lightning, followed with appalling rapidity by a peal of thunder. No one stirred till the thunder had rolled itself away. Then everybody said, 'There!' and started up, just as a few big rain-drops splashed down. Kester woke with a scream of fright; and his father, throwing a plaid round him, ran off with him towards the farm. Felix and Clement had both sprung to Geraldine, and were helping her up. There was a mile of open hill and stony road to the farm—a long walk for her under any circumstances; and no one had any protection bigger than a sun-shade. There was another terrific flash and burst of thunder, and the hail-stones came rattling down, so large as to give sharp blows.

'She can never walk it,' said both brothers at once. 'Cherry, you must ride!'

'Oh!' gasping, 'you can't.'

'Can't we? Haven't we often? There!' and in a moment the hands were clasped, queen's-cushion fashion, beneath her, the necks were bent for the arms to be thrown round them, even as had been done many a time in childhood before, only then Edgar had generally been one supporter. She hardly felt the beating of the pitiless storm; and when the wind, hail and roar of the tempest came with a terrific deafening whirl, she felt a strange sense of security; and even when the most fearful of all the flashes seemed to burst into the ground close before them simultaneously with the discharge like a thousand cannon overhead, and she heard Clement's whispered ejaculation, her first feeling was, 'All together—together!'

The others all darted past them in the general sauve qui peut. Wilmet, watching in anxiety at the farm-house porch, received first, half laughing, half panting 'Oh! isn't it jolly?' Angela and the longest-legged pupil; secondly, her husband, with their little son in his arms. 'This is like an Indian storm,' he said, and sat down, a good deal spent, and breathing hard.

Then came, dashing in together, the main body—Gertrude May, four pupils, Stella with Charles Audley; and they had no sooner recovered breath, than in came William and Robina, who had been delayed by Robina's attempt to secure the table-cloth, which had been blown so entirely over her, that Will had had some difficulty in releasing her from the flappings. They satisfied Wilmet that Cherry and her bearers were quite safe, and at the entrance of the lane; and John thereupon started up, and declared he should go and relieve them, but at that moment they were seen at the gate, Cherry on her own legs, and Felix and Clement, all in a glow, on each side of her. 'It was so nice,' she said, as her sister anxiously met her. 'Only think of having two such brothers! Oh no, I'm not frightened—no, nor in the least wet!'

Nobody was wet, for the hail-stones had rebounded, and one or two that had been captured were wonders worth preserving, had that been possible, looking like nitre-balls. Felix was drawing a pencil line round one on a piece of paper, when Robina exclaimed, 'Where's Lady Caergwent?'

'Didn't she come first?'