Why then was he so wretched, seeing she was as irrationally in love
with him?
"If it only comes out right," she sighed distrustfully many times a day.
She resolved never to interfere with anything again, but it came rather
late, seeing she probably had done the greatest mischief that she ever
would be permitted to have a hand in while she lived. She made up her
mind not to think anything about it, but, unfortunately for that plan,
she could not get out of sight of her work. If she had been a man, she
would probably have gone to the Adirondacks. But being a woman she had
to stay at home, and sit down among the tangled skeins which she had not
skill to straighten.
"If it only comes out right," she sighed again, the evening of that most
uncomfortable drive, "If it only comes out right." But it did not look
much like it.
I had gone directly in to tea, and so had Richard. Richard's face
silenced and depressed everybody at the table; and Mr. Langenau did
not come.
"There is going to be a terrible shower," said some one, and before the
sentence was ended, there was a vivid flash of lightning that made the
candles pale.
"How rapidly it has come up," said Sophie. "Was the sky black when you
came in, Richard?"
"I do not know," said Richard, and nobody doubted that he told the
truth.
"It had begun to darken before we came up from the river." said
Charlotte Benson. "The clouds were rising rapidly as we came in. It
will be a fearful tempest."
"Are the windows all shut?" said Sophie to the servant.
"I should think so," exclaimed Kilian. "The heat is horrid."
"Yes, it is suffocating," said Richard, getting up.
As he went out of the dining-room, some one, I think Henrietta, said,
"Well, I hope Mr. Langenau will get in safely; he was out on the river
when we were on the hill."
The storm was so sudden and so furious that everybody was concerned at
hearing this; even Kilian made some exclamation of alarm.
"Does he know anything about a boat?" he asked of Richard, who had
|