The lady and her son exerted themselves to make their young guest happy, and she was so glad and grateful in her pleasant surroundings that all were mutually sorry when toward ten o’clock the storm abated, and the moon struggled fitfully through the lowering clouds. “I must go home!” cried Cinthia, with wholesome dread of Mrs. Flint’s wrath; and their warmest urgings could not prevail on her to stay--though in her secret heart she longed to do so forever. “I shall bring back your clothes to-morrow,” she laughed, as Mrs. Varian bid her a cordial good-night. Then Arthur handed her into the waiting carriage, stepped in by her side, and the driver closed the door; and of that ride home we shall hear more in our next chapter. CHAPTER III. THE SWEET OLD STORY. Mrs. Flint grew very uneasy over her absent niece as the short afternoon waned and the fury of the storm increased to positive danger for any luckless pedestrian. After fidgeting and worrying until the early twilight fell, she began to say to herself that Cinthia was probably all right, anyway. She had doubtless gone into some friend’s for shelter, and would not likely return until morning. She took her frugal tea alone and in something like sadness, for Cinthia had seldom been absent from a meal before, and she began to feel what a loss it was to miss the fair young face about the house. She suddenly realized the tenderness lying dormant in her heart for the wilful girl. She sat down by the cozy fire with her knitting, and listened to the tempest of wind and rain soughing in the trees outside, and Cinthia’s rebellion that afternoon kept repeating itself over and over in her brain until she muttered aloud: “She wants fine things and parties and lovers, does she? Well, well, I s’pose it’s natural enough for her mother’s child, and for any young girl for that matter, but where’s she going to get them? The lovers would be easy enough--she’s as pretty as a pink--but I don’t want to encourage her vanity, and it’s better to save the money her father sends till she needs it worse. What if he should die way off yonder somewhere, and maybe not leave her a penny? I wish he’d come home, I do, or I wish she was homely as sin, with red hair and freckles, and a snub nose like Jane Ann Johnson!” So she fretted and fumed until past ten o’clock, and that was an hour beyond her usual bed-time; but somehow she could not get Cinthia out of her mind, could not bear to retire while she was away, so she kept glancing at the window, though scarcely expecting her to arrive before morning. How could she, in such a storm, though the wind had lulled somewhat, and the patter of the rain was dulled on the drifts of dead leaves that muffled the sound of carriage-wheels, pausing too, so that Mrs. Flint almost jumped out of her skin when there suddenly came a loud rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, upon the front door.