Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/238

 backward to glance into the sky and speak to her sister; but Mehitable shook her head violently, and in another moment, they were out of sight beyond a bend in the lane.

Master Wright had no sooner carried in his household goods than, with the tropic violence of extreme weather, the heavens seemed to open, and straightway he was drenched to the skin, so that his old wife, as though he had been out in the rain for his own pleasure, scolded him vigorously when he came into her kitchen.

Mehitable, meanwhile, was lashing poor old Dulcie to a gallop.

"Let us go back to Master Wright's!" shrieked Charity in her ear.

"Nay!" The other shook her head stubbornly. "We have come too far. We be near that old cabin that Granny Ward lived in, Cherry. I have been watching for it through this terrible rain."

And a moment or so later they did indeed come upon the cabin, standing vacant and forlorn beside the edge of the woodland. Dismounting, they both ran for the low opening, Mehitable pulling the horse after her.

The cabin was a single room with a dirt floor. A big fireplace stood at one end, and directly over their heads, as they entered, was a half-loft, open to the room. Old Dulcie had to be pulled in through the low door and beneath the loft out into