"And that _is_ the end of the story," Mrs. Cheever said decisively. "But what about the shell, Aunt Minnehaha?" Portia asked her. "Where is it? Have you got it still? I'd love to see it." A strange little expression flitted over Mrs. Cheever's face. "No," she said. "No, as a matter of fact, I no longer have it." She hesitated a moment, then went on. "The shell proved to be extremely rare, and after the death of my husband, Mr. Cheever, when I fell upon hard times, I sold it. The amount I received for it tided me over until I could return to Tarrigo--or Gone-Away, as it was called by then. So it was twice that that sea shell came to my rescue! I hope it has been as kind to those who purchased it." "But I wish you had it still." Portia sighed. Money seemed to her a very troubling, grown-up thing. Outside, the rain was pouring down again, pouring hard. It trounced the leaves and bounced from the sills. Mrs. Cheever's hens, complaining, scurried for shelter; but the duck waddled serenely along the path. Now and then he would stop and look about him, and one could have sworn that he was smiling. "We'd better go," said Julian. "Would you like me to drive you?" offered Mr. Payton. But, no, they wanted to run home. This rain was exciting; a massive downpour, and massive, too, was the sound of the summer's first thunder. It had a rolling, good-natured quality, like the roar of a well-fed lion. "Good-by, Aunt Minnehaha, good-by, Uncle Pin!" And Portia and Julian burst from the house, leaping and shouting: glad that it was raining hard and glad that they were children. 11 _The Hot Spell_ Early in July the weather turned very hot. "Ain't had a spell like this in fourteen years," Eli Scaynes said happily, for though wiry, he was thin and elderly. The heat just suited his bones, and he went about his work humming a tuneless tune. It suited the children, too, who wore as little as possible in the way of clothing and walked in and out of the hose sprinkler whenever they wanted to. It was hot in the morning when they woke up, and it kept on growing hotter all day long: still, burning, intense. The windless evenings, sparked with the drifting lights of fireflies and the fixed lights of stars, were so warm that the children were allowed to stay up later than usual. They made firefly lanterns and carried them off in the shadows, glimmering like will-o'-the-wisps, while the grownups sat in the lawn chairs talking and tinkling the ice in their cool glasses. Each day it was hotter. Julian and Portia felt proud of it. "The thermometer says 95°," Julian announced one morning; and on the next he said triumphantly, "It's 98!" And then one day it was 100°, and the children were overjoyed, though the grownups were not. The sun-beaten roses opened wide, large as lettuces, dropping their petals all too soon; and the soft new grass of the lawns felt warm and wilted under a bare foot.