blew refreshingly cold and clear almost
directly from the north.

It flattened the long parched grass in the yard. It danced the leaves
on the trees about so gayly and so madly as they turned their more
prominently veined sides to view (which Arethusa knew was almost a sure
indication of rain), it did not seem possible their slender stems could
hold them to the bending and twisting branches. Indeed, some of them
could not hold on and the wind gathered these up and carried them along
with bits of twigs and grass to pile up in the fence corners and wait
for that sorely needed drink of water there. A garden chair in front of
the house rocked violently as though some restless ghost were occupying
it and then overturned with a crash. The dust gathered up in the brown
dirt road in great swirls and whirled away like miniature
cyclone-clouds in their funnel shape towards the Pike to meet other
swirls of a lighter dust and go whirling still farther away, until the
wind grew tired of such sport and dropped them. The birds' nest in the
north cornice which Miss Eliza had been after for weeks blew down, and
the straw and bits of feathers were scattered all over the yard; but
only to be caught again by the wind and carried on somewhere else. The
green shutters on the house swung out on their fastenings as far as
they could and then banged back against the house with a tiny crash of
sound.

There seemed nothing that the wind overlooked. Even the clouds, as they
piled higher and higher and blacker and blacker, had the appearance of
being driven by the wind, nearer and nearer the Farm.

Arethusa ran out of the front door and down the long, flagged walk
towards the quince bushes, far at the very end of the yard, to meet
the storm. She held out her arms to the wind and drank in great deep
breaths of its refreshing coolness. It tossed her skirts about her and
blew the great rope of coppery red hair which ordinarily hung loosely
plaited down her back so that it streamed straight out behind her just
like a candle flame.

Of all the things that happened with which she was acquainted, Arethusa
loved best a thunder-storm. She felt no slightest tinge of fear; to be
out of doors in the wind and rain with thunder crashing and rolling
and great flashes of lightning splitting wide the heavens, every now
and then, left nothing to be desired towards the perfection of the
situation. She had sometimes fancied, after an unusually wide and
vivid flas