Flora started up abruptly. “I must run,” she shouted through a sudden gust of wind. “Good-by.”
Flora sped out of the yard. Her blue dress, lashing around her feet, changed color in the ghastly light of the storm. Some flying leaves struck her in the face. At the gate a cloud of dust from the road nearly blinded her. She realized in a bewildered fashion that there were three women on the other side struggling frantically with the latch.
“Does Mis' Jane Field live here?” inquired one of them, breathlessly.
“No,” replied Flora; “that isn't her name.”
“She don't?”
“No,” gasped Flora, her head lowered before the wind.
“Well, I want to know, ain't this the old Maxwell place?”
“Yes,” said Flora.
Some great drops of rain began to fall; there was another flash. The woman struggled mightily, and prevailed over the gate-latch. She pushed it open. “Well, I don't care,” said she, “I'm comin' in, whether or no. I dunno but my bonnet-strings will spot, an' I ain't goin' to have my best clothes soaked. It's mighty funny nobody knows where Mis' Field lives; but this is the old Maxwell house, where she wrote Mandy she lived, an' I'm goin' in.”
Flora stood aside, and the three women entered with a rush. Lois, standing near the door front, saw them coming through the greenish-yellow gloom, their three black figures scudding before the wind like black-sailed ships.