Whereupon she sprang to meet her father, and before he had divested himself of his snowy great-coat, she had covered his bearded face with kisses and dropped some tears on his hands.
It was after family worship that evening, when the father stood with a daughter on either side of him, with an arm around each, that he rallied Dora on her tearful greeting.
"Dora is mercurial," her mother said. "Her birthday comes in April, and there is very apt to be a shower right in the midst of sunshine."
"She has studied too hard to-day," the father said, kissing her fondly. "After a good night's rest, the sunshine will get the better of the showers."
"They both need developing in exactly different ways," he said to the mother when they were left to themselves.
He looked after his two beautiful girls fondly as he spoke, but the last words they had heard from him were:
"Good-night, daughters! Get ready for a bright to-morrow. The storm is about over."
"The storm did not trouble me," said Claire. "Real work often gets on better in a storm; and I think we shall have a chance to try it. I think papa is mistaken; the sky says to me that we shall have a stormy day."
When "to-morrow" came, the sun shone brilliantly in a cloudless sky; but every shutter in the Benedict mansion was closed, and crape streamed from the doorknobs; and during all that memorable day neither daughter did one thing that had been planned for the day before.