After tea the heavy clouds which had been gathering all the afternoon in white curled masses in the west, mounted higher with the sunset, and turned black and purple, emitting low growls, and occasionally parting to show long, jagged stripes of flame.
"It will be a good one when it gits here," remarked Rosie, putting the remaining biscuits into the bread box. "It's goin' to come sudden, too. If you've let anything to do after supper, Bob, you'd better be about it."
"Everything is battened down and tight caulked for the gale, Captain Gruber," replied Bob in nautical, but indistinct terms, his mouth being occupied with a postscript to supper, in the form of a stolen piece of Happie's cake.
It was nine o'clock, however, before the storm burst with sudden fury out of a greenish-blackness of sky and atmosphere that added to the horror of the vivid lightning.
Miss Bradbury sat erect on a straight chair with her feet on another, in rigid contempt of her own undeniable fear. Mrs. Scollard held Laura and Polly, one in each arm, and Bob and Happie tried to sing, but they missed Margery's sweet alto, and succeeded less well than usual in distracting the family attention from the storm. At its height a carriage dashed up the driveway, and a woman's voice cried: "Whoa!"
"Some one's got caught," observed Rosie, as the family looked at one another, the younger ones with a natural tendency to find something portentous in this arrival out of the wildness and blackness of the night.
"It's like Guy Mannering," whispered Happie to Bob.
Rosie opened the door. They heard her exclaim: "Well, for goodness' sake!"
Then she led the way into the library, as it had been decided to call what had been the parlor, and what Rosie still designated "the room."
She was followed by Miss Eunice Neumann, her sister, and an older woman; all three were very wet and looked as disgusted as mortals could look.