Happily for us all, good spirits are quite as infectious as low ones, if not indeed more so.
"I'm glad I washed her frock for her yesterday," thought the dame, taking credit to herself for the girl's pleasant looks. "Children are easy up and easy down. Maybe I've been a bit too sharp with her now and then."
And Dirk thought to himself that poor little Merran had certainly greatly improved, and even the other brothers refrained, half unconsciously, from teasing or jeering at her, as they had too often done.
The farmer came in after they were all seated at table. He had been having a good look at the sky, and his eyes fell on the small prophetess, with approval.
"You've been right, Merran," he said. "It does look now as if we were in for a spell of real summer weather. And who'd have thought it this time yesterday. If only it lasts till we get the hay in."
"It will, uncle, it will. You'll see," said she. "Just you trust me a bit. I'll know, I'm sure, when it's going to change."
And strange to say, no one laughed at her or her predictions. On the contrary, all of the family seemed impressed. Dirk's remarks the evening before were not forgotten.
And for some time to come Merran had no reason for misgiving. Morning after morning the lovely fairy parasol flew open at her tiniest touch; morning after morning the umbrella refused to yield in even the faintest degree. So the Seaview Farm hay was mown, and dried, and stacked under the most favourable circumstances, and more than one of the neighbouring yeomen wished that they had been as quick about it as Mac and his sons, though at the first start most of the wiseacres had told them they would find it had been better to put off a while.
And once it was all safe, there came a change. One warm bright morning, Merran looked up at the sky silently and then turned to her uncle.
"It's going to rain," she said. "Before night it'll be raining heavily."