But Aunt Emma only smiled through her spectacles and pointed to the window. The children ran to look out, and they could hardly believe their eyes when they saw that it had actually stopped raining, and that over the tree-tops was a narrow strip of blue sky, the first they had seen for three whole days. "Oh you nice blue sky!" exclaimed Milly, dancing up and down before the window with a beaming face. "Mind you stay there and get bigger. We'll get on our hats presently and come out to look at you. Oh! there's John Backhouse coming down the hill with the dogs. Mother, may we go up ourselves and ask Becky and Tiza to come to tea?" "But Aunt Emma must tell us her story first," persisted Olly, who hated being cheated out of a story by anything or anybody. "She promised." "You silly boy!" said Aunt Emma, "as if I was going to keep you indoors listening to stories just now, when the sun's shining for the first time for three whole days. I promised you my story on a wet day, and you shall have it--never fear. There'll be plenty more wet days before you go away from Ravensnest, I'm afraid. There goes my knitting, and mother's putting away her work, and father's stretching himself--which means we're all going for a walk." "To fetch Becky and Tiza, mother?" asked Milly; and when mother said "Yes, if you like," the two children raced off down the long passage to the nursery in the highest possible spirits. Soon they were all walking along the dripping drive past high banks of wet fern, and under trees which threw down showers of rain-drops at every puff of wind. And when they got into the road beside the river the children shouted with glee to see their brown shallow little river turned into a raging flood of water, which went sweeping and hurrying through the fields, and every now and then spreading itself over them and making great pools among the poor drowned hay. They ran on to look for the stepping-stones, but to their amazement there was not a stone to be seen. The water was rushing over them with a great roar and swirl, and Milly shivered a little bit when she remembered their bathe there a week before. "Well, old woman," said Mr. Norton, coming up to them, "I don't suppose you'd like, a bathe to-day--quite." "If we were in there now," said Olly, watching the river with great excitement, "the water would push us down krick! and the fishes would come and etten us all up." "They'd be a long time gobbling you up, Master Fatty," said his father. "Come, run along; it's too cold to stand about."