“Lucy!”
“Tom!”
Those were the only two intelligible words of the rush that followed, but even the catbird in the syringa bush, had his eye and ear been turned that way, might have taken a lesson in rapid and complete wooing and winning.
A patter of rain on the roof, another growl, and a flash caused Brooke to hasten out to the porch to look for her friend, while Tatters still barked and clawed at the door of the poultry house. Opening the door, she spied Lucy, who, for the moment, had pushed Brownell into the darkness behind her.
“So you looked for cats and weasels, and the door slammed on you!” she cried, dragging Lucy out by the wrist, and brushing away the whitewash that powdered her dark hair. “Hurry back to the house, for you know that neither one of us has a love of thunder-storms!”
“You were right, Brooke, it was not Tatters’ animal bark,—it was a man that frightened the fowls,” answered Lucy, still holding back.
“A man! Then why do you stay out here in the dusk? Who was it? You are laughing,—it must have been Adam playing a trick on us!”
“Adam! Oh, no, it is the man I am going to marry! Brooke Lawton—Tom Brownell! I believe, by the way, you have never before been properly introduced!” and the next flash saw three figures, followed by a joyous dog, scudding toward the house under a burst of rain.