Now Jeannie’s cigarette was, properly speaking, not a cigarette at all, but a barometer. It argued a very rare content and an almost passionate acceptance of the present circumstances of life. For weeks past, and more especially since this epidemic had come to the town, Jeannie could no more have smoked than she could have flown, and something, so argued Miss Fortescue, must have occurred to send her needle up this sky-high weather. The thunder-storm and the clearing of the air no doubt were predisposing causes, and so also might be reckoned the wonderful turn for the better of the case of the girl whose life had been despaired of that morning. But Miss Fortescue was not content to accept these alone as sufficient reasons. They would have occasioned relief, but no more, and this sudden rise in the barometer was due to the removal of a more marked depression. So, instead of going to bed, she put on her dressing-gown, and knocked softly at Jeannie’s door, and receiving no answer went in. The room was brilliantly lighted. Jeannie seemed to have lit all the candles she could find, and she herself was standing far from the door by the wide-flung window and looking out into the night. She too had taken off her dress and put on a short-sleeved dressing-gown, which left her arms bare to nearly the shoulder. Her hair was hanging down her back in a great black river as far as her waist, and her face, nearly in profile, was cut like a cameo against the dark square of the night. The rain had begun to fall heavily again, and the room was filled with the “sh-sh-sh” of the drinking grass. Just as Miss Fortescue stood at the door the blackness outside turned to a sheet of blue flame, and the thousand rods of the rain became for a moment a prism of colour. Jeannie started, and turning half round saw her aunt. A smile of great happiness played round her mouth, and she held up her head, listening. In another half second came the great gongs of thunder in answer to the lightning, and she laughed with pleasure. “Hear them, hear them!” she cried. “Oh, Aunt Em, isn’t it splendid? And the rain! Oh, the rain! Have you come for a talk? That is good also, for I cannot go to bed yet. Let us pull out our chairs to the window.” Now, Miss Fortescue hated thunder-storms and snakes and German bands, but she hated thunder-storms the most. But Jeannie’s happiness was too infectious to be denied, and she sat down in the chair by her. “Oh, I am so happy!” cried Jeannie. “Listen at the rivers down the gravel walks. There won’t be a flower in the garden to-morrow.” “I don’t know that that is altogether an advantage,” said Aunt Em. “Haven’t you got a better reason than that?” “Hundreds,” said Jeannie. “I am sane again. I was looking at things awry, and I have been put right.” “Who put you right?” asked Aunt Em. “Why, Mr. Collingwood!” said Jeannie. “He was here this afternoon.” “I didn’t know that,” said Miss Fortescue. Jeannie looked at her with frank surprise.