"It has come," said Lynde.

"I have my waterproof," returned the girl. "I shall do very well. But
you"--

The sentence was cut short by a flash of lightning, followed by a heavy
peal of thunder that rolled through the valley and reverberated for one
or two minutes among the hills. The guide grasped the reins close up to
the bits, and urged the mule forward at a brisk trot. The sky cleared,
and for a moment it looked as if the storm had drifted elsewhere; but
the party had not advanced twenty paces before there was a strange
rustling sound in the air, and the rain came down. The guide whipped off
a coarse woollen coat he wore, and threw it over the girl's shoulders,
tying it by the sleeves under her chin.

"Oh, you must not do that!" she cried, "you will catch your death!"

"Mademoiselle," he replied, laughing, as he gave another knot to the
sleeves, "for thirty-eight years, man and boy, I have been rained upon
and snowed upon--and voila!"

"You're a fine fellow, my friend, if you do speak English," cried Lynde,
"and I hope some honest girl has found it out before now."

"Monsieur," returned the man, signing himself with the cross, "she and
the little one are in heaven."

The rain came down in torrents; it pattered like shot against the rocks;
it beat the air of the valley into mist. Except the path immediately
before them, and the rocky perpendicular wall now on their right and now