"Sweet Sibyl of the Sweat-shop, or——" "Mother, I think you’re real mean!" Cora cried, anxious to prevent further betrayal. "Say, ladies an’ gen’lmen, I hate to break up this pleasant ent’tainment, but I guess you don’t realize how long we been dreamin’ the happy hours away, like Miss Frances Underwood used to sing, before she married Judge Granville—which they ain’t so _happy_ now, not on your life, poor dear! I think we better get a move on, or we’ll get soaked good and plenty. It’s my opinion we’re goin’ to have a shower." Claire did not attempt to argue the point. It was too evident that something was really going to happen. "Yes, let’s hurry," was all she said. "It’s later than I thought." Martha summoned her straying flock, and they made for the boat. The little clouds, no bigger than a man’s hand, had turned gray. Francie’s friends, the gulls, were darting excitedly to and fro, as if without direction, very close to the face of the water. Here and there the lake showed a white-cap. Martha stood at the wheel, in the bow, and steered straight for the opposite shore. For a while Mrs. Ronald kept up a careless chatter with the children, then, as if by common consent, there was silence. A sharp wind had risen out of nowhere, apparently, and begun to lash the water into frothy fringes that tossed their beads of spray high over the side of the boat. Suddenly Francie screamed. This time it was not the spray, but the wave itself that the blast rushed before it to break full upon _The Moth_, drenching the child to the skin. Martha glanced around to see what the trouble was. "There’s some tarpaulin under the seats," she shouted back over her shoulder, "wrap it about you an’—dry up!" Again there was silence, while the clouds massed themselves into granite barricades, shutting out the light, and the gale gathered force and fury with every second. It was impossible, now, to see the farther shore. The little _Moth_ seemed blindly fluttering in a dense mesh of gray mist impossible to penetrate. "We’re going every _which way_!" moaned Cora. At the same instant—"The rudder-ropes, Sammy!" shouted Martha. The boy slipped from his place, and, by sense of touch alone, found the cause of the obstruction, and freed the ropes. _The Moth_ gave a leap forward into the mist. "I’m afraid!" roared Sabina in no uncertain voice. "What you afraid of?" came back from the bow. "Don’t you know, if there was any danger _I’d get out_!" To the children, accustomed as they were to accept their mother’s word without question, the statement carried instant reassurance. Sabina stopped roaring, and Francie only screamed when each new wave broke over her, threatening to swamp the boat. "Hush, Francie!" called Miss Claire at length in a tense, strained voice. "You’ll make your mother nervous." Martha, hearing, answered back, "She don’t make me nervous. There’s nothing to be nervous about. Let her scream, if it makes her happy."