you stay over till to-morrow night," suggested Aunt Isabel.
She had risen, too, and now put her hand on Mr. Saunders's sleeve; her
face looked quite pleading in the moonlight. "There's to be a dance in
Odd Fellows' Hall."

"I'd certainly love to stay." He even dared to take hold of her hand
openly. "But I've got to be in Paola in the morning, and Blue Mound next
day."

"The orchestra's coming down from Macon City," she cajoled.

"Now, don't make it any harder for me," begged Mr. Saunders, smiling
down at her.

Aunt Isabel petulantly drew away her hand.

"You're selfish! And Charlie laid up and all!"

Mr. Saunders outspread his hands in a helpless gesture.

"Well, you know the hard lot of the knight of the road--here to-day,
gone to-morrow, never able to stay where his heart would wish!"

Missy caught her breath; how incautiously he talked!

After Mr. Saunders was gone, Aunt Isabel sat relapsed in her porch
chair, very quiet. Missy couldn't keep her eyes off of that lovely,
apathetic figure. Once Aunt Isabel put her hand to her head.

"Head hitting it up again?" asked Uncle Charlie solicitously.

Aunt Isabel nodded.

"You'd better get to bed, then," he said. And, despite his wounded toe,
he wouldn't let her attend to the shutting-up "chores," but, accompanied
by Missy, hobbled around to all the screen doors himself. Poor Uncle
Charlie!

It was hard for Missy to get to sleep that night. Her brain was a dark,
seething whirlpool. And the air seemed to grow thicker and thicker; it
rested heavily on her hot eyelids, pressed suffocatingly against her
throat. And when, finally, she escaped her thoughts in sleep, it was
only to encounter them again in troubled dreams.

She was awakened abruptly by a terrific noise. Oh, Lord! what was it?
She sat up. It sounded as if the house were falling down. Then the room,
the whole world, turned suddenly a glaring, ghostly white--then a
sharp, spiteful, head-splitting crack of sound--then heavier, staccato
volleys--then a baneful rumble, dying away.

A thunder-storm! Oh, Lord! Missy buried her face in her pillow. Nothing
in the world so terrified her as thunder-storms.

She seemed to have lain there ages, scarcely breathing, when, in a
little lull, above the fierce swish of rain she thought she heard
voices. Cautiously she lifted her head; listened. She had left her
door open for air and, now, she was sure she heard Uncle Charlie's
deep voice. She couldn't hear what he w