[IDYLLIC.]
"Are you well protected, Fräulein Stella?" Rohritz asks his young companion, after a long silence.
"Oh, yes," says Stella, contentedly wrapping herself in her shabby, thin, twenty-franc water-proof and pulling the hood over her fair head, "I am quite warm. It was a good thing that you gave us warning, or I should certainly have left my water-proof at home."
"You see an 'old bore,' as Les called my barometer, can be of use under certain circumstances."
"Indeed it can," Stella nods assent; "but it would have been a pity to give up the picnic at the bidding of your weather-prophet, for, on the whole, it was a great success."
"Are you serious?" Rohritz asks, surprised.
"Why should you doubt it?"
"Why, you have had less cause than any of us to enjoy the day. You have cut your foot, have spoiled a very pretty gown, and are in danger, if it goes on pouring thus, of being wet to the skin in spite of your water-proof."
"That is of no consequence," she declares from out the brown hood, her fair dripping face laughing up at him through the rain and the gathering darkness. "Where is the harm in getting a little wet? It is quite delightful."
He is silent. She is to be envied for her gay, happy temperament, and she looks wonderfully pretty in spite of her grotesque wrap.