chance of preventing Kate from catching cold. She looked a rueful
spectacle, dripping so as to make a little pool on the stone floor;
her hat and feather limp and streaming; her hair in long lank rats'
tails, each discharging its own waterfall; her clothes, ribbons, and
all, pasted down upon her! There was no time to be lost; and the
stranger took her by one hand, Lady de la Poer by the other, and
exchanging some civil speeches with one another half out of breath,
they almost swung her from one step of the grand stone stairs to
another, and hurried her along as fast as these beplastered garments
would let her move. There was no rain as yet, but there was another
clap of thunder much louder than the first; but they held Kate too
fast to let her stop, or otherwise make herself more foolish.

In a very few minutes they were at the good lady's door; in another
minute in her bedroom, where, while she and her maid bustled off to
warm the bed, Lady de la Poer tried to get the clothes off--a service
of difficulty, when every tie held fast, every button was slippery,
and the tighter garments fitted like skins. Kate was subdued and
frightened; she gave no trouble, but all the help she gave was to
pull a string so as to make a hopeless knot of the bow that her
friend had nearly undone.

However, by the time the bed was warm the dress was off, and the
child, rolled up in a great loose night-dress of the kind lady's, was
installed in it, feeling--sultry day though it were--that the warm
dryness was extremely comfortable to her chilled limbs. The good
lady brought her some hot tea, and moved away to the window, talking
in a low murmuring voice to Lady de la Poer. Presently a fresh flash
of lightning made her bury her head in the pillow; and there she
began thinking how hard it was that the thunder should come to spoil