By this time the worst of the storm was over, and Nathalie, seeing that it had settled down to a slow drizzle, decided that she must hurry on, for fear her mother would worry. So, after thanking her kind hostesses, and declaring that she would return their umbrella very soon,—she had promised to make them a real visit, as Miss Whipple called it, in answer to their repeated urgings,—she hurried out into the rain and was soon on her homeward way. It was not a pleasant walk, this plodding over a road deep with mud, and in some places running in tiny rivulets, for the girl had no rubbers on, but she kept up her cheer by whistling softly, for not a person was in sight until she reached the road through the woods, leading to Seven Pillars. Here she spied a queer-looking little figure in black, hobbling on ahead of her with a cane, but no umbrella. Something, perhaps it was the basket the woman carried, suggested that she might be the old lady who had called the afternoon before, so the girl hurried her steps, hoping, by the proffer of her umbrella, to atone for the seeming rudeness of her reception of the previous day. As she reached the black figure, she pantingly cried, “Oh, won’t you come under my umbrella, for I am sure you must be wet.” As she spoke she peered at the woman’s face, almost hidden by the wide brim of an old, rusty-looking black bonnet. But the bright blue eyes in the withered face, under its halo of black, only stared coldly, stonily, while the drooping mouth, seamed with a network of fine wrinkles, and deep lines of worry and disappointment, narrowed into a tightly compressed slit of red. But Nathalie, notwithstanding the disdainful glare, and the woman’s oppressive silence, pushed her umbrella over her head, and, somewhat to her own amusement, after a shuffle or two, was soon walking in step to the old woman’s hobble. “It has been quite a storm, hasn’t it?” ventured the girl, although her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment under the ill-timed silence of the woman, who acted not only as if she could dispense with the shelter of her umbrella, but with her company as well. The only reply to the girl was a sniff,—sounding almost like a sneer,—but, determined not to be daunted by the old woman’s surliness, Nathalie kept up her chatter, telling how charmed they were with the mountains, especially with Seven Pillars, with its magnificent view, and expressed her regret that they had not been at home the afternoon before, explaining that her mother had been lying down and did not know of her call. Presently, with a sudden movement, the old lady came to a halt. Before Nathalie could understand what she was stopping for,—her umbrella was held so closely over her companion’s head that she didn’t perceive the splash of red peeping from between the trees,—she had turned in at a little gate and the girl suddenly realized that the queer old lady was her neighbor of the little red house!