them by six o'clock.
There is no train from Oak Cliff within hours of that time, and it has
occurred to me that the folks might come for me in the red machine. Of
course the Kid thinks she can handle it, but I hate to trust her on so
long and hilly a route. Could you come with them?"

An invitation was never accepted with more cheerful willingness. It was
arranged that Mrs. Harding, Miss Harding and I should arrive at Oak
Cliff with the auto at about four o'clock Tuesday afternoon.

We were to start from Woodvale at half after one o'clock, so as to have
plenty of time. That Fate, which is always prying into and disarranging
the plans of us poor mortals, interfered with our arrangements an hour
before the time fixed for our departure. The visitors who were to arrive
in the evening came shortly after noon. It was exasperating.

I pictured myself making that long trip alone, and cursed the chattering
arrivals who had the bad form to anticipate the hour set for their
welcome. There were three of them, and I noticed that they were of
mature years.

I sat glumly watching them and heartily wishing that the train which
brought them had been blocked for an hour or two, when Miss Harding came
smilingly towards me.

"Mamma cannot go," she said.

"And you?" I asked, hardly daring to hope for the best.

"They seemed glad to excuse me, Jacques Henri," she laughed.

I have no doubt I grinned like a Cheshire cat. I refrained from telling
the abominable falsehood that I was sorry Mrs. Harding could not go with
us, and an hour later the huge touring car rolled smoothly away from the
Woodvale club house, its front seat occupied by a supremely happy
gentleman of the name of Smith, and by his side a supremely pretty young
lady who waved her hand to the elderly group on the veranda.

I had been so absorbed in the unfolding of the incidents just narrated
that I took no note of the weather or of anything else. For a month or
more the weather has been so uniformly fine that we had come to accept
the succession of warm but cloudless days as a matter of course.

When I was a boy my father drilled into me a knowledge of the visible
signs of impending changes in meteorological conditions. As I became
older the study of the warnings displayed in the sky and in the
indescribable variations in the feel of the air possessed a fascination
for me. During the early years after the formation of the club the
members jested me on account of my pre