"Where are you going?" cried Mrs. Transom, now beginning to be frightened at the girl's distracted looks. "You're never going out of the house feeling like this? You'll have a fit of sickness, sure as you're alive, and then where'll you be? and 'tis all foolishness, too, I'll be bound. I can't understand a word you say. And there's a storm coming up, too. I see it as I was coming along, and was reckoning on finding shelter here when I fust stopped to speak to the old gentleman. There, hear the thunder this very minute! Narcissy! Why, good land of deliverance, she's gone!" * * * * * The storm came on very suddenly,--first, a low bank of cloud heaving in sight on the western horizon, long and misshapen, like the back of a kraken; then the whole monster revealed, rising across the sky, tossing monstrous arms about, showing ugly tints of yellow, ugly depths of purple and black. There was no lightning at first, only low mutterings of thunder, and every now and then a pale lifting of the darkness, as if the monster were opening his cavernous jaws, showing glimpses of dim horror within. Then, of a sudden, with no note of warning, the whole sky sprang into flame, the whole air was a roar and a bellow, deafening the ears, stunning the senses,--and the storm broke over the road to Rome. The rain struck aslant, driving a spray before it, as of a mountain stream. In five minutes no road was to be seen,--only a long stretch of brown water, hissing and writhing under the scourge of the rain and wind. A horse came plodding carefully along, crouching together as well as he could, picking his way through the water. The two men in the buggy behind him were crouching, too, and trying to hide behind the rubber boot. It was some comfort to think that they were trying to keep dry, though both knew that they were already drenched to the skin. "It's lucky for me that I met you," said the younger of the two, shaking himself, and sending a shower of spray in all directions. "P'r'aps 'tis just as well," replied the other man, with a chuckle. "You'd hardly have known yourself from a muskrat by this time, if you'd had to foot it from Rome here. Been stoppin' there?" "Stopping as long as I cared to," said the youth, who was no other than our friend Romulus Patten. "I got there last night, and was good and ready to come away this morning. I'm travelling for Brown's Nurseries, and there don't seem to be any call for any of our goods in Rome. Stone-crop's the only plant they raise much of, I guess."