Page:The Sick-A-Bed Lady.djvu/185



ONDAY, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, it had rained. Day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, it had rained and rained and rained and rained and rained, till by Friday night the great blue mountains loomed like a chunk of ruined velvet, and the fog along the valley lay thick and gross as mildewed porridge.

It was a horrid storm. Slop and shiver and rot ting leaves were rampant. Even in Alrik's snug lit tle house the chairs were wetter than moss. Clothes in the closets hung lank and clammy as undried bathing-suits. Worst of all, across every mirror lay a breathy, sad gray mist, as though ghosts had been back to whimper there over their lost faces.

It had never been so before in the first week of October.

There were seven of us who used to tryst there together every year in the gorgeous Scotch-plaid Autumn, when the reds and greens and blues and