"Well, I am afraid of him," said Almira, sulkily, "and I cannot bear him. For my part, I think it was very hard-hearted in him to show so little regard to our feelings. He told me to be quick, as though I had been a dog."
"You should have minded the first time," said Belle. "Besides, you know that you made more than half of it. It was not more than five minutes after we got into the dining room, before I saw you eating the cake you stole from the tea-table."
"Perhaps it was the consciousness of the theft that shamed her," remarked some one in the group. "But Alice fainted away, and Mr. Fletcher did not scold her at all."
"Thunder always makes me faint," said Alice. "It is not because I am afraid, either, for I should like to watch the storm coming up, if it did not make me sick. I suppose it must be something in the air. I had been feeling very unwell for some time before the window blew in, but I thought I would brave it out. You know I never could make the experiment with the electrical machines, because they made my head ache so."
"Yes, and if it had been any one but you, Mr. Fletcher would say it was affectation," returned Almira.
"Oh, Almira!" said Lucy. "I think there are a good many girls in this school whose word Mr. Fletcher would take in such a case."
"Well, I was frightened for one, I confess," said Annette, "though I tried hard not to show it on account of the children, for I remembered how I was first taught to be afraid of thunder."
"How?" asked some one.
"By seeing other people afraid. I had never thought of such a thing till I was almost five years old, but I used to stand at the window and watch the flashes. About that time a lady came to our house, who was afraid of all sorts of things, especially of thunder. It was not long before a storm came up, and she flew round the house, shutting all the windows and doors—"
"A very unphilosophical thing to do," interrupted Janet, "as any one may see who takes the trouble to think about it."