Because she was wearing her most becoming hat lined with pink!
There was a distant rumble of thunder. Then a sudden draught of damp air. All along the river’s placid surface little boats were scurrying to shore like schools of frightened tadpoles.
“To the shore,” shouted Edward Bacon. “The rain’s upon us!”
A sheet of rain blew into their faces and a gust of wind, as if with malicious intent, lifted Nancy’s prized hat, pins and all, straight off her head and landed it on the water, where it floated along like a big pink lily pad.
“Oh, oh!” she cried, the tears rolling down her cheeks. “My hat! My pretty pink hat!”
Then into the water jumped the gallant Edward Bacon, seized the hat before he was waist deep and composedly brought it to land.
“Oh, I know it was wrong for me to come,” wept the young girl. “Oh, dear, I shouldn’t have done it and now I’m being punished!”
It was a hard price, surely, to pay for this escapade: to lose her most cherished possession,—for the pink hat bore only a bedraggled and distant resemblance to its former self.
“Come along,” exclaimed Edward Bacon, almost brusquely. “There’s no time now to cry over spilt hats. We’ll have to beat it to some house out of the rain.”
Nancy was nearly carried by two of her cavaliers as she ran. They rushed up a wood path which led apparently to a pretty little rustic house in a garden. And as the rain was now falling in torrents, they rushed through the open door into the hall without waiting for an invitation.