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Page 54
"I hope there will be enough of a roof left over our heads to shelter
us," said Mrs. Sherman, as bricks from the chimney tops began rolling
down the roof and falling to the ground below with heavy thuds.
"We expected to start home about this time," Miss Allison was saying.
"We ordered the wagonettes to come back for us at ten o'clock, but it
looks now as if we are storm-bound for the night. Did you ever hear such
a downpour?"
"It's the clatter of the rain on the tin roof of the porch," answered
Mrs. Sherman, speaking at the top of her voice in order to be heard
above the deafening din of the rain and wind.
For nearly half an hour they sat waiting for the storm to pass. Several
games were proposed, but none of the children wanted to play. They
seemed to feel more comfortable when they were snuggled up close
against some grown person, or holding some elderly protecting hand. But
gradually the lightning grew fainter and fainter, and the thunder went
growling away in the distance, although the rain kept steadily on. Mrs.
Sherman called for some music in the drawing-room, and while Miss
Allison and Mrs. Cassidy played the liveliest duets they knew, the
children drifted out into the hall and over the house as they pleased.
Most of the older boys and girls sat on the stairs in groups of twos and
threes, while from the upper hall the scurry of feet, and the singsong
cry that London Bridge was falling down, showed what the little ones
were playing. It was after eleven o'clock when the wagonettes came
rumbling up to the door. The rain had stopped, and a few stars were
beginning to struggle through the clouds.
"How cold and damp it is!" exclaimed Mrs. Sherman, as she stepped out on
the front porch. "The thermometer must have fallen twenty degrees since
you came. You will all need wraps of some kind. Wait till I can get you
some shawls and things."
"No, indeed!" every one protested. "We will wrap up in our sheets again.
We do not need anything else."
There was a laughing scrimmage over the pile of sheets that had been
thrown hastily into one corner of the hall, when the party ran in out of
the storm. Nearly all the masks and pillow-cases were put on again, too,
so that the party broke up in laughing confusion. Nobody recognised his
neighbour or knew who he was bumping against as he hurried up to bid his
perplexed hostess good night.
With a great cracking of whips and creaking of wheels the spectral party
drove off, to the tune of "Good-night, ladies, we're going to leave you
now." Far down the road the chorus came floating back to the listeners
on the porch, "Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along."
"Wasn't it funny?" yawned Lloyd, as she went sleepily up the stairs.
"But oh, I'm so tiahed. I believe if they had stayed much longah, I'd
have fallen ovah in a heap on the flo'."
All the lights were out down-stairs, and the girls were nearly
undressed, when they were surprised to hear one of the wagonettes coming
back. A frantic clang of the knocker on the front door brought them all
to the windows.
"Oh, Mrs. Sherman!" cried an agonised voice out of the darkness, that
they recognised as Mrs. Cassidy's, "are the twins here? Bethel and
Ethel? We can't find them anywhere. I was sure that I lifted them into
the wagonette myself, but every one was so disguised that I must have
mistaken somebody else's children for mine."
"They are not in either wagonette," added Rob Moore's voice. "We never
thought to count noses until we reached the Cassidy place, and then we
found they were missing."
Hastily slipping into a wrapper, Mrs. Sherman ran down-stairs with a
candle in her hand, and opened the front door. Plump little Mrs. Cassidy
was standing there, wringing her hands.
"Oh, _don't_ tell me that they are not here!" she cried. "Didn't you see
them when you were locking up the house after we left? Then I know
they're lost. They must have slipped away from the porch before the
storm came up, and were playing outside somewhere when we all ran inside
and shut the door. Oh, my babies!" she wailed. "If they were out in all
that awful storm it has killed them, I know. Oh, why did I do such a
foolish thing as to bring them? They were too little to come, I knew
that. But they begged so hard, and they looked so cute in those little
ruffled pillow-cases, that I hadn't the heart to refuse. Oh, what shall
I do?"
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