Caroline waked in her bed just as a great cart-load of rocks—or so it seemed to her—was dumped upon the roof. She could see the furniture, the hangings, the very pictures on the walls ghastly and unfamiliar in the glare of what must be a gigantic searchlight, which was shut off suddenly and left the room in smothery, thick blackness.

Caroline ducked beneath the coverings and hugged Mildred tight in her arms. A second crash shook the bed beneath her—a second burst of flaming light searched her out, even beneath the sheet and the soft blanket. She thought she was going to die with terror, when she heard a little faint click, and a voice spoke right above her:

“Jacqueline! It’s I—Cousin Penelope. Don’t be frightened!”

Hesitatingly, Caroline put aside the coverings and sat up. The light on the little table at her bedside had been switched on, and in the shaded brightness stood Cousin Penelope. She wore a silk dressing-gown of pale lavender, embroidered with clusters of purple wistaria. Her hair hung in a long braid at either side of her pale face. She looked gentler than ever Caroline had known her or dreamed that she could be. When she smiled, Caroline smiled back.

“Mildred was a little frightened,” said Caroline. “I’m glad you came in, Cousin Penelope. Will you stay—or does Aunt Eunice want you?”

“Mother has lived through so many tempests that she doesn’t mind them now,” said Cousin Penelope. She drew up the low rocker and sat down. “I don’t think they can be worse than your California earthquakes.”

My conscience! How Jacqueline would have resented the suggestion that there were ever earthquakes in California! But Caroline was too ignorant of the proper attitude of a Native Daughter to be indignant. She only held Mildred tighter and gasped a little, as the room once more was irradiated with white and awesome light. She looked gratefully at Cousin Penelope.

“I don’t mind it much,” she quavered, “now that you are here. It—it does make you think of poetry, doesn’t it?

Down came another cartload on the roof, only this time it didn’t sound like mere rocks, but like metal rails.

“Ow!” squeaked Caroline. “Do you think that hit anything? Of course I’m not frightened, but Mildred is downright hectic.”

Cousin Penelope rose and pulled down the blinds, and drew the chintz curtains across the windows. The fearsome glare of the lightning was shut out, but the thunder still thumped and thudded overhead. Caroline was glad that when Cousin Penelope sat down again, she drew the chair quite close to the bedside.

“It’s very comforting to have you here, Cousin Penelope,” she murmured.

“We’re company for each other, Jacqueline. Now lie down and go to sleep again. I won’t leave you till the storm is over.”

So Caroline nestled down in her bed and closed her eyes, and thought of her party. She opened her eyes again, as the thunder crashed angrily, and saw Cousin Penelope sitting in the soft lamplight, so different from Cousin Penelope by day.

“I like you with your hair down, Cousin Penelope,” Caroline said sleepily. “I wish you wore it always that way. You are so pretty with your hair down.”

Cousin Penelope actually flushed, cheek and throat, but she wasn’t angry, for her eyes were smiling.

Then Caroline shifted Mildred in her arms, and closed her eyes once more. Presently she realized that there had been silence for a space that was long enough to be felt—silence except for the roar of rain upon the roof, and that was nothing to the anvil clang of the thunder that for so long had deafened them.

“Mildred is going to sleep,” said Caroline, without opening her eyes. “She thinks the storm is most over.”

The thunder rolled, but it was far away, like a noise in dreams, and presently it was only in dreams, for Caroline, that the thunder rolled. When she opened her eyes again, there was no light in the room, except the pale light that came from the rain-washed out-of-doors. Against the night Cousin Penelope’s form was outlined, as she finished putting up the blinds and opening the windows. Then she came softly across the room, in the fresh, sweet air and bent and drew the coverlet over Caroline’s shoulders.

“Good-night, Cousin Penelope,” Caroline whispered sleepily. “Go back to bed now—or you’ll take cold.”

In the darkness Cousin Penelope bent suddenly, and the faint scent of violets came with her. She kissed Caroline’s forehead, and Caroline put up her arms, and caught her round the neck, and kissed her cheek.

“You’re so good, Cousin Penelope,” she whispered. “I’m so glad you like me.”

For a moment Cousin Penelope held her close.

“Of course I—like you, Jacqueline.”

The naming of the name that was not hers made Caroline shrink in the arms that held her.

“I want you to like me always!” she cried from her very heart.

“Silly little girl!” Cousin Penelope whispered tenderly—think of Cousin Penelope being tender!—and kissed her again. Then she tucked her in snugly, and bade her sleep, for the storm was over, and went away.

But Caroline lay wide awake, until the rain had dwindled to the mere dribble of water from the roof, and when she slept at last, her dreams were troubled.

For Jacqueline at that hour, there were no dreams. All the first part of the night she had slept soundly. She was really tired, for she had worked hard all day, in an honest effort to make up for the naughtiness of the day before, and to show that she appreciated the way in which no one, not even Neil, alluded to it. (Neil had actually come forward, and offered to help wash the dinner dishes!)

But when the first crash of thunder reverberated from the eastern mountains to the hills across the river, Jacqueline sat right up in bed. Where was she? What was happening? A white blaze lit the topsy-turvy baskets of roses on the wall-paper, so that she clapped her hands to her eyes and thought she was blind for life. Then she felt the clutch of frightened little arms flung round her, and heard Nellie sob:

“Oh, Jackie! I’m so scared!”

“Thunder can’t hurt you, goosey!” quavered Jacqueline, with her arm pressed tight across her eyes. The roof would fall upon their heads next moment, she was sure. The whole house would go up in a blaze of fire. Oh, why didn’t Aunt Martha come to rescue them?

But Aunt Martha didn’t come. Nobody came! The thunder shook the roof beams. The lightning sheathed the room in molten flame. Nellie sobbed, and choked, and clung round Jacqueline’s neck.

“Mammy! Mammy!” she gasped.

“Keep still!” Jacqueline scolded. “Your mother isn’t coming—nobody’s coming—and I’ve got to get up and shut those windows.”

Yes, that was just what she must do. For the rain, driven by the wind, was drenching their bed, and doing nobody knew what damage besides. She must get up—and she did get up! It wouldn’t do ever to let Nellie think that ten years old could be as scared as six years old.

Jacqueline struggled with the windows that stuck, while the rain soaked through her thin nightdress, clear to her skin, and the thunder boomed in her ears, and the lightning seemed aimed in all the universe at her one poor little head. She remembered every dreary story she had ever heard of people killed by lightning. She thought she was killed, half a dozen times at least. But she closed the windows and yanked down the blinds, to shut out the glare. Then she made one flying leap into the bed and clutched Nellie as tight as Nellie clutched her, and vowed to herself that nothing—nothing in the wide world!—should tear her from the protection of that bed, until the storm was over.

Just as she made that vow, there came from Aunt Martha’s room a thin, high-pitched wail that made both little girls catch their breath.

“What’s Freddie crying for?” asked Nellie.

“He’ll stop in half a jiffy,” said Jacqueline. “Aunt Martha’ll wake up and take him. Why can’t she hear him? He’s crying loud enough.”

He was indeed, strangling, gasping, screaming with fright, and as she listened to him, Jacqueline grew frightened, too. For if Aunt Martha were in her room, she would surely wake and go to Freddie, and if she were not in her room, oh, where could Aunt Martha be? The night that had been terrible before with ear-splitting noises and unearthly fires was doubly terrible now, with the fear of unknown, ghastly things. Jacqueline’s breath came in uneven gasps, while she listened agonizedly to hear Aunt Martha moving about, and heard only Freddie’s cries.

But she couldn’t let him cry like that, she realized. She would have to go and get him—leave her snug bed—cross her room—the hall—Aunt Martha’s room—in that dreadful light and darkness, with the thunder roaring round her, and the fear of unspoken things turning her blood to ice.

“I can’t—I can’t!” Jacqueline’s spirit fairly chittered within her. But Freddie kept on crying—and he was just a baby. She couldn’t let him suffer there alone in the storm.

“Be a sport!” she told herself, through chattering teeth, and: “Nellie, you shut up!” she said aloud, in a harsh, snappy voice.

Out of the bed she got, and she set her teeth tight, and she made herself run straight into the next room. By a flash of lightning she could see poor Freddie, with his face dark and convulsed, as he sat screaming in his crib, and she could see Aunt Martha’s bed, with the coverings turned back, and Aunt Martha—gone. She didn’t dare stop to ask questions. She just caught up Freddie, who clawed her neck as he clung like a terrified kitten, and she ran staggering with him back into her own room. She plumped him into the bed beside Nellie, and scuttled in beneath the coverings. She had thought confusedly that once she was safe back in bed, she would have a good old cry to relieve her feelings. But she couldn’t cry. She had to quiet the two children.

“Hush up now!” she heard herself saying stoutly. “You’re all safe—you’re here with Jackie—I’ll take care of you.”

The thunder volleyed. The lightning flamed. The storm had lasted an eternity. It would last, she felt, forever. Then, without warning, there was Aunt Martha coming in at the door, a dark, indistinct figure, but with Aunt Martha’s footsteps that made Jacqueline, at the first sound, cry out with relief.

“You’ve got Freddie?” Aunt Martha spoke in a strained, tired voice, not like hers at all. “I knew I could trust you, Jackie. Look out for him till morning. I’ve got to stay downstairs.”

“What’s happened?” whispered Jacqueline.

“I went down to close the windows,” Aunt Martha went on, in that queer, deadened voice. “I’d left them open because of the heat. Grandma had got up to see to them. Somehow she must have lost her bearings, and slipped and fallen. The phone won’t work. Maybe the wires are down. Ralph’s going to get out the car and fetch the doctor right away.”

“Oh, Aunt Martha!” Jacqueline cried aloud.

“Grandma isn’t——”

“I’m afraid,” said Aunt Martha brokenly, “I’m afraid she’s hurt herself pretty bad.”