The next day threatened to be a dreary one, for the rain fell so
steadily as to make all sunny, out-of-door pleasures impossible.
Many looked abroad with faces as dismal and cloudy as the sky;
for the number of those who rise above their circumstances with a
cheery courage are but few. Human faces can shine, although the
sun be clouded; but, as a rule, the shadow falls on the face also,
and the regal spirit succumbs like a clod of earth.

The people came straggling down late to breakfast in the dark
morning, and, with a childish egotism that considers only self and
immediate desires, the lowering weather which meant renewed beauty
and wealth to all the land, was berated as if it were a small spite
against the handful of people at the Lake House. Van Berg heard
Ida Mayhew exclaiming against the clouds as if this spite were
aimed at herself only.

"Some of her friends might not venture from the city," she said.

"They youths are not venturesome, then," remarked Stanton, who
never lost an opportunity to tease.

"Of course they don't wish to get wet," she pouted.

"And yet I'll wager any amount that they are not of the 'salt of
the earth' in any scriptural sense. Well, they had better stay
in town, for this would be an instance of 'much ventured, nothing
gained.'"