Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/75

 speech had left him. Pocketing his pipe and pulling his wet hat down over his forehead, he stumped off down the muddy furrow, never looking back. The rain had ceased entirely now and the sun had come breaking through the clouds with that brilliant clearness that often follows a storm. It made the drenched green rows glisten and the new corn, bowing before the wind, sparkle and drop jewels as the gusts passed by. Betsey slowly lifted one heavy foot out of the mud and then the other, and walked very thoughtfully up the path.

On Saturday and Sunday she went away into the country with some friends of her own age to stay at a distant country place and to spend the quick hours in very happy holiday-making, returning to school on Monday morning with more energy and cheerfulness than she had known for a week. Affairs of various kinds kept her occupied so late that it was not until the long daylight hour after dinner that she was free to hasten away up Somerset Lane. As she came to the gate she saw with delight that there were lights in the upper windows, that the doors stood open and that the whole place had a more cheerful look than it had recently worn. Even Dick, sitting on the gate post and conversing with himself in happy gutturals, seemed trying to announce that the mistress of the house was once more at home.