"My son, they did not," Mrs. Anderson responded, solemnly.

"No, and that settles it, I suppose. If they did, you would say at
once they ought to be forced to resign from their offices. Now,
mother, be resigned all you like, but don't be pleased, for you can't
cheat the Providence that made this beastly heat, and must know
perfectly well how beastly it is, better than you or I do, and won't
think any more of us for any pretence in the matter."

"You shock me, dear. And, besides, I did not say that I liked it. I
said I liked the weather after a shower. You look pale this morning,
dear, and you don't talk quite like yourself. I do wish you would
take an umbrella when you go to the office to-day. It is so very
warm." Mrs. Anderson had a chronic fear of sunstroke.

When Randolph went away without his umbrella, as he usually did,
being, dearly as he loved his mother, impervious to some of her
feminine demands, she watched him, standing in the doorway and
shaking her head with a dubious air.

That noon she was quite contented, for he did actually carry his
umbrella. The sky in the northwest was threatening, although the sun
still shone fiercely in the south. She herself sat on the doorstep in
the shade, and fairly panted like a corpulent old dog. Her mouth was
open and her tongue even lolled a little. She was, in reality,
suffering frightfully. She had both flesh and nerves, and, given
these two adverse conditions to endurance, and the mercury ninety in
the shade, there is torture although the spirit is strong.

Although the sky was threatening all the afternoon, it was not until
four o'clock that the northwest sky grew distinctly ominous and the
rumble of the thunder was audible. Then Mrs. Anderson called her
maid, and they proceeded to close tightly all the windows against the
rising wind.

"It is very dangerous indeed to have a draught in the house in a
thunder-shower," Mrs. Anderson always said while closing them.

Then she hurriedly divested herself of the white lawn wrapper which
she had worn all day, and put on her black summer silk gown, with a
wrap and a bonnet and an umbrella at hand. Mrs. Anderson was not
afraid of a thunder-shower in the ordinary sense, but her imagination
never failed her. Therefore she was always dressed, in case the worst
should happen and she be forced to flee from a stricken house. She
also had her small and portable treasures ready at hand. Then she sat
down in the middle of the s