APTER XLVI.

"... Peace, pray you, now,
No dancing more. Sing sweet, and make us mirth.
We have done with dancing measures; sing that song
You call the song of love at ebb."

Yesterday it had seemed impossible that we could ever be dry again, and
yet to-day we are. Even our hair is no longer in dull, discolored ropes.
A night has intervened between us and our sufferings. We have at last
got the sound of the hissing rain and the thunder of the boisterous wind
out of our ears. We have all got colds more or less. I am among the
_less_; for rough weather has never been an enemy to me, and at home I
have always been used to splashing about in the wet, with the native
relish of a young duck. Mrs. Huntley is (despite the fly) among the
_more_. She does not appear until late--not until near luncheon-time.
Her cold is in the head, the _safest_ but unbecomingest place,
producing, as I with malignant joy perceive, a slight thickening and
swelling of her little thin nose, and a boiled-gooseberry air in her
appealing eyes.

The old gentleman is--with the exception, perhaps, of Algy--the most
dilapidated among us. He has not yet begun one anecdote, whose point was
not smothered and effaced by that choking, goat-like cough. This is
perhaps a gain to _us_, as one is not expected to laugh at a _cough_;
nor does its _denoument_ ever put one to the blush.

Mr. Parker has no cold at all, and has even had the shameless audacity
to propose _another_ expedition to-day. But we all rise in such loud and
open revolt that he has perforce to withdraw his suggestion.

He must save his superfluous energy for the evening, when the neighbors
are to come together, and we are to dance. This fact is news to most of
us, and I think we hardly receive it with the elation he expects. There
seems to be more of rheumatism than of dance in many of our limbs, and
our united sneezes will be enough to drown the band. However, revolt in
this case is useless. We must console ourselves with the notion that at
least in a ballroom there can be neither rain nor wind--that we cannot
lose our way or be upset, at least not in the sense which had such
terror for us yesterday. Roger has gone over to Tempest on business, and
is away all day. Mrs. Huntley sits by the fire, with a little fichu over
her head, sipping a tisane; while Algy, in undisturbed possession, and
with restored but feverish amiability, stretches his length on the rug
at her feet, and