CHAPTER XV.
STARTING FOR HOME.
IT had been a stormy evening, and the little company of busy people who had gathered in the church for a rehearsal, were obliged to plod home through an incipient snow-storm; but they were in happy mood, for the most successful rehearsal of the enterprise had been held, and certain developments had delighted their hearts.
To begin with: just as they had completed a difficult chorus, the door leading into the outside world had opened with a decisive bang, and there had been an energetic stamping of feet in the little entry, and there appeared Alice and Louis Ansted.
There was still on Alice's face that curious mixture of superiority and discontent which Claire had always seen in her.
"Here we are!" she said, in a tone that expressed a sort of surprise with herself at the idea. "It would be difficult to tell why. Now, what do you want of me?"
Claire went forward to meet them, her face bright with welcome.
"Have you really come to help us?" she asked.
"I suppose so. I don't know why else we should have appeared here in the storm. It is snowing. I don't mind the storm, though; only, why did I come? I don't know; if you do, I wish you would tell me."