could, and
ran to the protecting doorway of the water-house (the house itself was
locked as it was Sunday). Here we stowed ourselves away like so many
sardines, and waited patiently under the umbrella for an hour. Finally
the sun broke out, and we made our way over deep ponds of water back to
our boat. Sam looked up with a dejected expression as we approached, and
feared the boat wasn't fit for the ladies to go home in; he was bailing
it out as fast as he could, but it was very wet.

Wet indeed! Why Sam had not drawn the boat up on the beach and turned it
over during the rain, no one could imagine; but that brilliant idea had
not occurred to him. Therefore we were obliged to row back with our feet
reposing in little pools of water.

Before long, down came the rain again in torrents, but stimulated by the
prospective fee, Sam rowed with giant strokes. About a mile from the
hotel, we met the landlord rowing with desperate haste. It seems that
the rain had been even more violent at _his_ end of the lake, having been
magnified into a squall upon the water, and a tornado upon land, blowing
down trees, and breaking away the lattice-work of the hotel piazza;
consequently he supposed our boat must have been ingulfed, and had come
to look for the corpses. His amazement at finding us alive, and, though
very wet, in excellent spirits, was great.

An entree into the hotel in our wet dresses was rather a formidable
affair for Ida and myself, as all the boarders were assembled upon the
piazza to see, I suppose, how we looked after our "miraculous escape from
drowning." Hastening past them into a private room, we took off our
dripping wraps, and supplied their places with brilliant plaid shawls
lent us by the landlady, in which we drove back to Chappaqua--to the
wonder, I doubt not, of all who recognized us on the way. The horses
this time went more evenly, and the entire strain of propelling the
carriage did not fall upon poor Lady Alice. But when we reached home,
Mr. Reid's white suit, and our dresses, veils, and even faces, were a
sight to behold from the liquid mud with which we were bespattered. We
had to turn out of our way for a couple of miles, as a tree blown down by
the storm lay across the main road, and this second detention did not
increase the enthusiasm of our welcome from Lina, for dinner had been
ordered at half-past three, and it was five when we reached the house.
Her pet dessert, a lemon _soufflee_, i