another, and I could hear them flitting restlessly from bush to bush. Again this spring a nightingale had tried to build in a bush under the window, and I heard her fly off across the avenue when I went into the veranda. From there she whistled once and then stopped; she, too, was expecting the rain.
I tried in vain to calm my feelings: I had a sense of anticipation and regret.
He came downstairs again and sat down beside me.
“I am afraid they will get wet,” he said.
“Yes,” I answered; and we sat for long without speaking.
The cloud came down lower and lower with no wind. The air grew stiller and more fragrant. Suddenly a drop fell on the canvas awning and seemed to rebound from it; then another broke on the gravel path; soon there was a splash on the burdock leaves, and a fresh shower of big drops came down faster and faster. Nightingales and frogs were both dumb; only the high note of the falling water, though the rain made it seem more distant, still went on; and a bird, which must have sheltered among the dry leaves near the veranda, steadily repeated its two unvarying notes. My husband got up to go in.
“Where are you going?” I asked, trying to keep him; “it is so pleasant here.”
“We must send them an umbrella and galoshes,” he replied.
“Don’t trouble—it will soon be over.”
He thought I was right, and we remained together in the veranda. I rested one hand upon the wet slippery rail and put my head out. The fresh rain wetted my hair and neck in places. The cloud, growing lighter