Spring had advanced to that season of damp, hot, sunny days and rainy nights when all things are growing at such speed that shrubs and trees are top-heavy with their new green shoots and are easily shaken by the wind, while people feel restless and uneasy and would like to be doing something different from the tasks before them. Elizabeth often found school dull and oppressive, with the air of the room close, with her feet shuffling beneath her desk from the long hours of quiet and with her thoughts wandering so far away that the page of her book was only a blur before her. Every day, when she walked home, she would make a detour up Somerset Lane just to look at the cottage, to notice how green the vegetable garden was growing, how the pea vines were tall enough to be swinging in the wind. Once she came across Mr. Reynolds, strolling on the lawn for a breath of air, Dick perched in solemn state upon his shoulder. She questioned him at once as to Miss Miranda’s term of absence and what her sudden departure might mean. “I did not quite understand it myself,” he answered, seeming to be as distressed as Betsey in his vague, absent-minded way. “She seemed to decide on going very much of a sudden, but—I do not quite know—it appears to me that she had been a little uneasy for some time, a little troubled when people came suddenly to the door. Well, well, perhaps the journey will quiet her.” He turned to go back to his shop. He did not invite Betsey to enter, probably, indeed, he had forgotten all about her the moment he crossed the doorstep. There came Friday afternoon a month, it seemed, from the last Friday, when Miss Miranda had gone away. As Elizabeth walked along the lane, feeling the air hot and heavy with coming rain, she hesitated a moment at the turning, listening to the muttered thunder in the distance and knowing that a downpour was not far off. From the breathlessness of the whole world about her and the increasing blackness overhead, she realized that this was to be no such spring shower as had once delayed her on that same road, but a real and furious thunderstorm. Yet she could not refrain from turning up the hill, so anxious was she to know whether or not Miss Miranda had returned. She felt hopeful at least of getting, through Mr. Reynolds’ vague answers to her questions, or from Michael’s grunted yes or no, some information as to when the mistress of the house might be expected. There was no one in sight to-day, however, for the lawn was vacant, the garden empty and the windows closed and blank as though even Mr. Reynolds and the sour woman in the kitchen had deserted the place. She lingered at the gate, lonely and disappointed. “I’ll walk down through the garden and see how the onions and the ducks are getting on,” she said to herself. “It’s not going to rain so very soon.”