“Don’t be frightened. I am not blaming you. It was merely an accident; but, my dear, it was not the right kind of thing to do.” “Must I not speak to Mr. Wodehouse?” she asked, half tremblingly, half (as she meant it) satirically. But poor Rose’s little effusion of (what she intended for) gall took no effect whatever. Mrs. Damerel did not perceive that any satire was meant. “Oh, you may speak to him! You may bid him good-by, certainly; but I--your papa--in short, we have heard something of Mr. Wodehouse which--we do not quite like. I do not wish for any more intimacy with them, especially just now.” “Do you mean you have heard some harm of him?” said Rose, opening her eyes with a sudden start. “Well, perhaps not any harm; I cannot quite tell what it was; but something which made your papa decide--in short, I don’t want to take too much notice of the Wodehouses as a family. They do not suit your papa.” Rose walked on with her mother to the rectory gate, silent, with her heart swelling full. She did not believe that her father had anything to do with it. It was not he who was to blame, whatever Mrs. Damerel might say. CHAPTER VI. Nature took sides against Love on that evening, and made Mrs. Damerel’s warning unnecessary, and all the anticipations of the young persons of no avail. Instead of the evening stroll about the darkling garden which Wodehouse at least had proposed to himself, the party were shut up in the drawing-room by the sudden outbreak of that expected thunderstorm on which Mrs. Wodehouse and Mrs. Damerel had discussed so earnestly. The ladies had both felt that it must come, and the young sailor, I suppose, ought to have been more clearly aware of what was impending; but there are, no doubt, states of the mind which make a man totally indifferent to, and unobservant of, the changes of the atmosphere. Anyhow, though he arrived in the sweet beginning of the twilight, when all was still, poor Edward had not only to stay in-doors, but to take a seat next to Mrs. Damerel in the drawing-room; while Rose, who was somewhat nervous about the thunder, retired into a dark corner to which he dared not follow her boldly under the very eyes of her father and her mother. He did what he could, poor fellow: he tried very hard to persuade her to come to the other end of the room and watch the storm which was raging gloriously on the plain below, lighting up the whole landscape in sudden, brilliant gleams; for one of the windows had been left uncurtained and Mr. Damerel himself placed his chair within reach of it to enjoy the wonderful spectacle. Rose at one time longed so much to venture that her desire overmastered her fears; but the rector, who was somewhat fretful that evening, presumably on account of the storm, which affected his fine sensibilities, sent her away hurriedly. “No, no, Rose--what have you to do with storms?” he said; “go back to your mother.” When she obeyed,