"A little--oh, it's nothing, only the thunder in the air. You might tell Andrews to bring me some phenacetin, will you, dear? And now, my child, run away to your guests--they'll think it queer if you leave them alone much longer." Toni turned obediently to the door, but she was not yet easy in her mind. "Owen, are you sure there is nothing I can do?" "Nothing, thank you, dear. I believe the storm is passing after all." He spoke the truth, for with a few more mutterings the thunder died away in the distance; and though the promised coolness did not come, both Owen and Toni were relieved by the lightening atmosphere--Toni because she was an arrant coward where thunderstorms were concerned; Owen because he felt that the clash of the elements would render the neuralgic pains in his head almost unbearable. For long after Toni, relieved, had gone back to her visitors he sat doing nothing, lacking the energy to attack his task. Now and then he heard a few notes on the piano, and once he opened the door to listen to the elder Miss Peach's rendering of a song he knew, for Mollie Peach had a sweet, limpid soprano voice which no amount of chatter and noisy laughter could destroy. When, however, the young man from Sandhurst started to shout a comic song, Owen shut the door hastily and wished the boy at Jericho. He began to think the visitors would never go. At first he had hoped that their departure would set Toni free to help him after all; but when the clock in the hall chimed the half hour after ten, and still the music and laughter continued, he knew it was useless to expect any aid to-night. At eleven the party broke up. The bicycles were brought round, and the four went gaily out of the front door to light lamps and see to suspiciously slack tyres. Owen had charged Toni with polite messages to the two girls; and they, being somewhat in awe of a real live writer, were not sorry to avoid a meeting with their host; but Toni seemed so loth to part with them that she detained them all on the steps, chattering eagerly while the stars winked down out of the clearing sky and the owls hooted in melancholy fashion from the tops of the tall trees behind the house. Finally the last farewells were said, the last appointments made; and Toni, yawning, turned to Andrews and bade him lock up safely. She was still yawning when she came into the library a moment later; and in the lamplight Owen caught a glimpse of her little red mouth gaping behind her hand as she came up to the table. "How sleepy I am!" Indeed her eyes were bright, like those of a sleepy child. "Aren't you coming, Owen? It's ever so late." "Why didn't you pack your friends off a little earlier then?" "Oh, I didn't want them to go." She yawned childishly once more. "Owen"--suddenly a thought struck her--"you're not cross, are you? You didn't mind me having them here? You know, I thought it was going to be a storm----"