“Well, I declare!” said Mrs. Ranger, openly shocked.
“Did you bring your umbrell and your storm hood?” asked Temperance.
“No,” snapped Mrs. Ranger, remembering her new crape.
“That’s a pity,” said Temperance coolly, “seeing you’ve got your new bunnit on—when you knew what we came here for.”
In the parlance of the village, Temperance and Mrs. Ranger “loved each other like rats and poison.”
Nat arrived with the democrat—jubilant over “his Temp’rins’” foresight. “That’s what I call Faith,” he said, handing out the coverings.
“I’m glad he told us,” whispered Lanty to Mabella “if he hadn’t—I’d have thought ’twas your waterproofs.”
And Mabella, though she was a pious little soul, could not help smiling rosily out of the waterproof hood at her lover’s wit, and what with the smile, and the ends of her yellow hair poking out of the dark hood, and her soft chin tilted up to permit of fastening a stubborn button, Lanty had much to do to abstain from sealing her his then and there before all the congregation.
All was at length arranged, and Temperance went off with her party dry beneath the umbrellas. The rest of the congregation took their drenching in good part. They were not going to complain of rain in one while!