orothy and the boys carried armfuls of wood, and stacked them in the
passage to the sitting-room, two steps higher up. At nine o'clock the
boys were sent, protesting, to bed; and Dorothy, looking out of their
window, as she fumbled about in the dark for a pair of Shep's trowsers
which needed mending, saw a lantern flickering up the road. It was
Evesham, on his way to the mill-dams. The light glimmered on his
oil-skin coat as he climbed the stile behind the well-curb.

"He raised the flood-gates at noon," Dorothy said to herself. "I wonder
if he is anxious about the dams." She resolved to watch for his return,
but she was busy settling her mother for the night when she heard his
footsteps on the porch. The roar of water from the hills startled
Dorothy as she opened the door;--it had increased in violence within an
hour. A gust of wind and rain followed Evesham into the entry.

"Come in," she said, running lightly across the sitting-room to close
the door of her mother's room.

He stood opposite her on the hearth-rug and looked into her eyes across
the estrangement of the summer. It was not Dorothy of the mill-head, or
of Slocum's meadow, or the cold maid of the well: it was a very
anxious, lovely little girl, in a crumbling old house, with a foot of
water in the cellar, and a sick mother in the next room. She had
forgotten about Ephraim and his idols; she picked up Shep's trowsers
from the rug, where she had dropped them, and looking intently at her
thimble finger, told him she was very glad he had come.

"Did you think I wouldn't come?" said he. "I'm going to take you home
with me, Dorothy,--you and your mother and the boys. It's not fit for
you to be here alone!"

"Do you know of any danger?"

"I _know_ of none, but water's a thing you can't depend on. It's an
ugly rain; older men than your father remember nothing like it."

"I shall be glad to have mother go, and Jimmy;--the house is very damp.
It's an awful night for her to be out, though!"

"She _must_ go!" said Evesham. "You must all go. I'll be back in half
an hour--"

"_I_ shall not go," Dorothy said; "the boys and I must stay and look
after the stock."

"What's that?" Evesham was listening to a trickling of water outside
the door.

"Oh! it's from the kitchen! The door's blown open, I guess!"

Dorothy looked out into the passage; a strong wind was blowing in from
the kitchen, where the water covered the floor and washed against the
chimney.

"Thi