Every window was closed tight, and the blinds drawn down, in addition, making a semi-darkness. For Miss Letitia was afraid of storms, thunder storms especially. At the very first distant rumble of thunder she always closed every opening in the house.
She sat bolt upright in the centre of the room, her plump little person enthroned upon a leather pillow—lightning never struck through feathers—and her never idle fingers were busy crocheting a rose-colored afghan for Miss Asenath. Miss Letitia decidedly preferred steel needles both for crocheting and knitting, but steel was dangerous to use during a storm—it attracted lightning—, so her steel needles were all safe in the very bottom of her bureau drawer underneath her plain assortment of chemises and petticoats. And she had wheeled the sewing machine into the very farthest and darkest corner of the room.
Miss Letitia was like nothing in the world so much as a ridiculously fat edition of Miss Eliza. But she lacked Miss Eliza's precision, and she could never, even with several conscientious trials, get her hair parted exactly in the middle. Arethusa sometimes on very special occasions parted it for her. Miss Eliza liked to see her sister as neat as herself. She liked Miss Letitia's apparel to have the same trim look as her own instead of the comfortably untidy appearance it did have.
But, as Miss Letitia plaintively expressed it, when taken to task because she was not just so, "It's a great deal easier, Sister, to pin things down on a thin person, because there isn't any strain."
Arethusa picked up the last copy of the Christian Observer, which was lying near Miss Asenath, and fanned herself vigorously. Her efforts to cool herself were so vigorous that in a very few moments she was wet with perspiration and much warmer than she had been before she started to fan. She felt as if she were about to suffocate in this close room after her glorious little run in the breath of the cold wind.
"May I open a window, Aunt 'Titia," she begged, "Please, mayn't I? It's not storming yet, and, and, I'm so hot!"
"Never open a window in a storm, 'Thusa. It's a very dangerous thing to do."
Miss Letitia iooked at her great-niece just as severely as she knew how, though the severe effect she intended was somewhat marred by that perennial twinkle in her eyes and the rosy cloud in her lap below her round, rosy face. Such a setting made her look more like a grown-up cherub than anything else at the moment.
The whole room, even with its closed blinds, was suddenly illuminated by a blinding glow, and a crashing roll of thunder followed immediately afterwards.
Miss Letitia screamed.