ay
think that it is for _her_, but it is not--it is for _you_! Will you
promise me to go home in it, if he asks you?"

I am silent.

"Will you?" she repeats, taking hold of one of my froggy hands, while
her eyes shine with a soft and friendly urgency; "you know you always
used to take my advice when we were little--will you?"

Somehow, at her words, a little warmth of comfortable reassurance steals
about my heart. At home she always used to be right: perhaps she is
right now--perhaps _I_ am wrong. I will be even better than her
suggestion.

Roger is standing not far from us. The rain has drenched his beard and
his heavy mustache: the great drops stand on his eyelashes, and on his
straight brows. Perhaps I only imagine it, but to me he looks sad and
out of heart. It is not the weather that makes him so, if he is. Much he
cares for that!

I call him "Roger!" My voice is small and low, and the wind is large and
loud, but he hears me.

"Yes?" (turning at the sound with a surprised expression).

"May I go home in the fly?" I ask impulsively, yet humbly, "I mean
with--with _her_!" (a gulp at the pronoun), then, under the influence of
a fear that he may think that I am driven by a hankering after creature
comforts to this overture, I go on quickly, "it is not because I want to
be kept dry--if I were to be dragged through the sea I could not be
wetter than I am--but if you wish--Barbara thought--Barbara said--"

I mumble off into shy incoherency.

"_Will_ you?" he says, with a tone of eagerness and pleasure, which, if
not real, is at least admirably feigned. "It is what I was just wishing
to ask you, only" (laughing with a sort of constraint and a touch of
bitterness) "I really was _afraid_!"

"Am I such a _shrew_?" I say, looking at him with a feeling of growing
light-heartedness. "Ah! I always was! was not I, Barbara?" Then, a
moment after, in a tone that is almost gay, I say, "May Barbara come,
too? is there room?"

"Of course!" he answers readily; "surely there is plenty of room for
all!"

While the words are yet on his lips, while I am still smiling up at him,
under the soaked tartan there comes a voice from the coach.

"Roger!"

He obeys the summons. It is just five paces off, and I hear each of the
slow and softly-enunciated words that follow.

"I hear that you have sent for a fly! how very thoughtful of you! did
you ever forget _any thing_, I wonder? I was--no--not _dreading_ my
drive home; but now