d, staring in rough astonishment.

Lucy hung on to her arm. "Stay a bit! Joseph must hold the umbrella over
Miss. Emmar, tell her she can't no wise go alone."

Susannah fled into the driving sheets of rain, but Joseph Smith,
umbrella in hand, followed her.

CHAPTER III.

The umbrella was a very heavy one. Susannah certainly could not have
held it against the wind. Joseph Smith held the shelter between Susannah
and the blast, looking at her occasionally with a kindly expression in
his blue eyes, but merely to see how far it sheltered her.

They walked in silence for about a quarter of a mile. The rain swept
upon her skirt and feet; she saw it falling thick on either side; she
saw it beating upon Smith's shoulder, upon one side of his hat, and
dripping from his light hair. The wind was so strong that the very drops
that trickled from his hair were blown backward. His blue coat was
old--not much protection, she thought, against the storm.

The false prophet had hitherto appeared quite as terrible to her
imagination and as far removed from real life as the wild beast of story
books; now he appeared very much like any other man--rather more kind in
his actions, perhaps, and distrait in his thought. Susannah began to
think herself a discoverer.

"You are not keeping the rain off yourself."

"It don't matter about me. I don't mind getting wet."

His tone carried conviction. After a while gratitude again stirred her
into speech.

"I'm afraid you find it awfully hard holding up the umbrella."

He gave a glance downward at her as she toiled by his side. "Why you're
most blown away as it is. You couldn't get along without the umbrellar."
Regarding her attentively for a minute, he added, "Emmar will be vexed
when she hears that your dress got so splashed."

They were both bending somewhat forward against the wind; the road
beneath them was glistening with standing water. When they passed by the
woods the trees were creaking and cracking, and over the meadows hung
shifting veils of clouds and rain.

"I guess I'd better not take you farther than Sharon Peck's. Your folks
would be pretty mad if you walked through the village with Joe Smith."

The lines round Susannah's mouth strengthened themselves; she felt
herself superior to those whose attitude of mind he had thus described.

"You have been very kind to come with me. I'd like better to go home
than stop, if it isn't too far."

"I guess not. If you'd live