This sarcasm did not cut so deeply as one might imagine. It would have been impossible to insert the idea--save with an axe--into old "Lucy" Tems's brain that New York was more important and metropolitan than Colbury, or essentially more remote. "This Lorenzo Taft ain't been so sociable till lately. That's what makes me call him a _perfessional_ widower," old Tems went on, with a peculiar relish for the designation. "He hev two childern, gal an' boy, an' the gal hev been with her gran'mam down in Blount County till the old woman died; an' now he hev got 'Sis,' ez he calls her, with him, an' he wants a step-mammy fur her! He ain't a-courtin' a wife fur hisself; he's courtin' a step-mammy fur 'Sis.' An' in course his sheep's-eyes would go cornsider'ble furder with the gals than they do, ef they didn't know that he air jes' out a-trappin' fur 'Sis.'" "Waal," said Adelicia suddenly, "I dunno ez folks oughter think hard of him fur that, 'kase 'Sis' did look powerful lonesome an' pitiful, settin' up all by herself 'mongst all the men at the store." "Thar, now!" exclaimed Cap'n Lucy triumphantly, "makin' excuses fur folks agin! I told ye ez ye couldn't hold out till bedtime 'thout excusin' this one fur that, an' t'other one fur which." "Waal," said Adelicia, "it's a mighty late bedtime." She was rolling up the coat as carefully as if a first-class triumph of needlework had been accomplished upon it. "'Sis' didn't 'pear ter me ter need enny lookin' arter whenst I seen her," said old Tems heartlessly. "She 'peared ter be some fower or five hunderd year old, an' stiddy an' settled ter accommodate." "She be 'bout ten year old," said Adelicia gravely. "I wonder," said Cap'n Lucy, with a twinkle of the eye, "I _do_ wonder ef that thar pernicious way o' makin' excuses fur folks's faults would hold out ef Ad'licia war ter set out ter be somebody's step-mammy!" Luther suddenly held up his hand with an intent look, bespeaking silence. The rain was coming. From far away one could hear the steady march of its serried columns, now amongst the resonant woods, and now through open spaces, and again threading narrow ravines. A bugle blast of the wind issued suddenly from a rocky defile, and was silent again, and once more only the sounds of that resistless multitudinous advance pervaded the mountain wilderness. Already the influx of air from the open door was freighted with dank suggestions commingled with the odor of dust. For a panic was astir in the myriad particles that lay in heaps in the sandy road; they seemed to seek a futile flight in some inadequate current of the air, and were wafted a few paces along, to fall again upon the ground, and finally to be annihilated by the vanguard of the great body of the torrents. A tentative drop here and there on the clapboards of the roof, increasing presently to a brisk fusillade, and then all individuality of sound was lost in the tumultuous downpour under which the cabin rocked.