as
the best of them, so why don't you set off too? As for me, I have not
got my best bonnet on, for I foresaw there would be showers, and I have
nothing else that can hurt. A very few drops would make that pretty
crape bonnet of yours not fit to be seen."

"We shall be at home before the rain comes," said Bessy; "and I am sure
that if it is only a few drops they will not hurt my bonnet; I want to
stay with you. I want to ask you about the people I saw at church.
Come, now, tell me, Betty, what was that family that sat just before
us?"

Betty was walking away as fast as she could, and she answered:

"Miss, I can't stop to talk--it has begun to rain behind us on the
hills; we shall have it in no time; and there is no house this way to
run into."

"O la! Betty," cried Miss Bessy next; "my shoe-string is unpinned: do,
for pity, lend me a big pin."

"Why, Miss," said Betty, "sure you don't pin your shoe-strings?"

"Only when I am in a hurry," she answered.

Betty found a pin, and the shoe was put to rights as well as might be;
but two minutes at least were lost whilst this was being done.

"Now come on, Miss, as fast as you can," said Betty; "the drops are
already falling on the dust at our feet."

They went on a few paces without another word, and then Miss Bessy
screamed:

"Oh, Betty, the other string has gone snap: have you another pin?"

"Miss, Miss!" said Betty, fumbling for a pin, and in her hurry not
being able to find one. Once more Miss Bessy was what soldiers call in
marching order, and they made, may be, a hundred paces, without any
other difficulty but the falling of the rain, though as yet it was only
the skirts of the shower. The house was in view, and was not distant
three hundred yards by the road, and somewhat less over a field.

"Let us go over the field," said Bessy.

"No, no," replied Betty, bustling on. "If the gate on the other side
should be locked--and John often keeps it so--we should be quite at
fault."

"And what sort of a gate must it be," said Bessy, "that you and I could
not get over?"

"We had better keep the road, Miss," replied Betty; "the grass must be
wet already with the little rain which is come."

"And yet it has scarce laid the dust in the road," returned Bessy; "so
if you choose to keep to the road, I shall take the field; so good-bye
to you;" and the next minute she was over the stile, and running across
the grass.

Betty looked after her a minute, and then sayi