of Osgood and
Brown, Lawyers."

"You don't say! Come right in. I'm Amanda B. Mills, and Lawyer Osgood
has been my counsel for twenty-one years and more. I'd never a-kept you
waitin' out there a minute, if I'd known 'twas you. Is this your sister?
Don't wipe your shoes. Come right in. There's other folks been caught in
this rain, too."

She stepped back, still speaking, and invited them into the kitchen.
Polly and Frieda, stumbling a little, blinded as they were by the water
dripping from their hair, followed her. As they entered the room, there
was a moment's silence, then a burst of laughter and exclamations.

"For the love of Mike!"

"Where did you rain down from?"

"O dear, O dear! You ridiculous boys!"

"What a guy you do look, Polly!"

And slowly out of the babel of voices came a deep solemn:
"_Donnerwetter!_" It was not a lady-like expression for a nice
little German girl to use, but she knew that to American ears it sounded
more harmless than her usual expletives, and, besides, she felt that if
ever an occasion had warranted emphasis this was it. She and Polly,
dripping, draggled, ragged, confronted with Algernon, Max, Bert and
Archie, almost as wet, grouped about Amanda B. Mills' kitchen stove!

Mrs. Mills' astonishment at the boisterous greeting given her latest
guests by the earlier ones was so manifest that Polly hastened to make
all clear with introductions.

"How do you happen to be here?" she asked, as she finished, and Archie
had made a Chesterfieldian bow, though the blue from his Andover cap had
run into his fair hair.

"Fishing," answered Bert. "We drove out from town with our old nag,
hitched her to a tree and fished. Thunder and lightning always rile the
beast, and she just broke her tie-strap and oozed off home, and left us
in her wake. We got this far, walking, but the road was such a juicy
mess we decided to stop and telephone for some one to come out after
us."

"That's what I am going to do. Where is the telephone, Mrs. Mills?"

"O, do allow us to have the pleasure," begged Max. "They said they'd
send out the 'light bearers' wagon,' and it's warranted to hold six.
Besides it will be here in twenty minutes, and a private equipage would
take longer."

"Well--it's awfully kind of you, I'm sure! Aren't you afraid we'll make
you wetter, though, if we ride in the same carriage? I am flooding the
floor at this moment. It's terrible, Mrs. Mills. Isn't there a shed we
could go into, an