During the rest of the week the rainstorm, that had started all the
trouble, continued to hover ominously, breaking forth day after day in
fierce, petulant showers. Out at Thornwood the aspect was most dreary;
the low-lying ground in front of the house was under water for a
quarter of a mile, trees, limp and draggled, stood disconsolate in an
unfamiliar lake, the bridge below the dam was washed away, and horses
going to the creek for water were constantly being caught by the
current, and having to be rescued by ropes. In the flower garden
dirty-faced little blossoms lay in the mud, vines trailed across the
paths, all the fragrance and color seemed to be soaked out of
everything by those continuous, pelting showers.

Within the house it was not much gayer. The front hall, with its
steep, narrow stairway, and floor-covering of highly ornate landscape
oilcloth, was in a perpetual twilight. An occasional glint from white
woodwork, or the gold molding of a picture, strove in vain to dispel
the gloom. The parlor, at the right of the hall, was sepulchral with
its window cracks stuffed with paper, and the shutters securely
closed. To be sure, the living-room on the other side of the hall did
its best to look cheerful, but even that comfortable spot with its low
ceiling and battered mahogany furniture, its high cupboards flanking
the wide, stone fireplace, and its friendly litter of every-day
necessities, was not equal to the occasion.

One afternoon when the Colonel came in from the chicken yard where he
and Uncle Jimpson had constituted themselves a salvage corps, he
surprised Miss Lady sitting in the dusk on the floor before the empty
fireplace, with suspicious traces of tears upon her face.