Glancing through the open window at the mountains and the sky, Elsie
answered that she saw no present indications of a storm; there was nothing
to betoken it but the heat and closeness of the air.

"Are you afraid of thunder, Aunt Elsie?" asked Harry.

"Lightning, you silly boy," corrected Gertrude, "nobody's afraid of
thunder."

"Yes, you are," he retorted. "You just ought to see, Ed, how scared she
gets," and Harry laughed scornfully.

Gertrude was ready with an indignant retort, but her mother stopped her.
"If you are really brave, Gertrude, you can have an excellent opportunity
to show it when the storm comes." Then to Harry, "Let your sister alone,
or I'll send you from the room."

The gust, a very severe one, came in the afternoon. Before it was fairly
upon them, Lucy, herself pale with terror, had collected her children in a
darkened room and seated them all on a feather-bed, where they remained
during the storm, half stifled by the heat, the little ones clinging to
their mother, hiding their heads in her lap and crying with fear.

Elsie and her children formed a different group; the mother the central
figure here also, her darlings gathered closely about her, in her
dressing-room--at a safe distance from the open windows--watching with
awed delight, the bursting of the storm clouds over the mountain-tops, the
play of the lightning, the sweep of the rain down from the heights into
the valleys and river below, listening to the crash and roar of the