ldom meets with.
Then Sammy and I started on our long walk over the ridges and barrens,
striking well inland. We had been gone but a few minutes before
Sweetapple Cove was blotted from our sight by the pelting rain that
spattered fiercely over our oilskins.

And now I am putting in another long night.

The storm still beats upon the roof and the wind is howling like some
unmerciful beast unleashed. The _Snowbird_ surely could not sail away
to-day, for the dawning is showing its first gleams through the tiny
window panes, and there is no sign of any change.

CHAPTER XVI

_From Miss Helen Jelliffe to Miss Jane Van Zandt_

_Dearest Aunt Jennie:_

Why does the world sometimes seem to turn the wrong way, so that
everything becomes miserably topsy-turvy? I have often had to struggle
to keep awake when writing you these long letters, which you say you are
so glad to get. But now I am writing because I am so dreadfully awake
that I don't feel as if I ever could sleep again.

It is now a week since Stefansson came up to the house, and the water
dripping from him ran down and joined the baby rivers that were rushing
down the little road before our house.

"I've come for orders, Mr. Jelliffe," he said.

"Orders! What orders?" asked Daddy, irascibly. "I'd like to know what
orders I can give except to wait till this fiendish weather gets better.
You don't expect to start in such a gale, do you?"

"We couldn't make it very well, sir, and that's a fact. I don't even
think I could take her out of the cove. If we could only get her clear of
the coast we'd be all right enough, but I wouldn't like to take chances."

"Who wants to take chances? Do you suppose I'm so anxious to go that I'm
going to risk all our lives? Come back or send word as soon as you think
it safe to start. That's all I want. I suppose everything is all right in
the engine room now."

Our skipper confirmed this and left. All day the storm gathered greater
fury, and has kept it up ever since. At times the rain stops, and the
great black clouds race desperately across the sky while the world
outside our little cove is a raging mass of spume that becomes wind-torn
and flies like huge snow flakes high up in the air. And then the rain
begins again, slanting and beating down wickedly, and I feel that no such
thing can ever have existed as clear skies and balmy breezes.

A number of hours ago, I don't really know how many, I was sitting with
Daddy, who