“NOW I hope we shall have no more troubles before father comes home,” said Madge on the Saturday afternoon, as she helped her mother to iron some pinafores and pocket-handkerchiefs she had been washing out. “Baby’s getting better, and only wants plenty of strengthening food; and Jem begins work again on Monday—only three shillings a week, though, to begin with—I’m afraid he’ll soon be tired of that; and—why do you look so serious, mother?”

“I have so much to make me look so, Madge. You talk of no further troubles, and forget that to-morrow’s Sunday, and there’s nothing for dinner.”

Madge looked horrified, and scorched a handkerchief through stopping to gaze at her mother.

“Have you come to an end of your money?” she asked.“Very nearly. I must keep enough to get what’s necessary for baby.”

“Oh, mother! I ought to try and earn something too, though I shouldn’t like to leave you to do all the work at home. Well, never mind about meat for to-morrow. We’ll just have bread, that’s the cheapest thing.”

“What’s that?” asked Jack, coming in, for he was free early on Saturday. “Nothing but bread for dinner? Here’s enough for a mutton chop or two at any rate.” And he placed some shillings on the ironing-cloth before Mrs. Kayll.

“My dear boy!” she cried; “five! What have you done for your own dinners during the week?”

Jack was nearly through the doorway by this time, but he looked back over his shoulder half laughing, half confused.

“I’ve gone without any,” he said, and ran off.

The tears came for an instant into Mrs. Kayll’s tired eyes.

“Poor boy,” said she softly. “How good he is! And we have always thought he cared for nobody but himself!”“He is so quiet and says so little,” Madge answered, “that it is hard to understand him. But he is of more real use than any of the others. This morning and yesterday he was up before me, and had lighted the fire, put the kettle on, drawn up the blinds, and unfastened the doors.”

Mrs. Kayll thoughtfully put the money into her purse. She was surprised to find how little she had known of what was in her own children. Where had they learned so much unselfishness? she asked herself, not suspecting that they learned it of her, who never considered her own feelings or her own pleasure, but lived for them and her husband.

Not long after, Bob came in with another contribution to the family exchequer, in the shape of six more shillings which he had by some means contrived to earn while taking care of his father’s office; so that now Mrs. Kayll began to think they must have reached the lowest depth of their troubles, and that things were beginning to mend.

But she was wrong. The worst catastrophe of all was in store when they least expected it, but just now came the calm before the storm.

Mrs. Kayll went out that evening and bought some meat for the Sunday dinner, and the essence of beef the doctor had ordered for the baby, making what she spent go as far as possible, but yet providing enough for all, making up by an extra quantity of potatoes for the rather short supply of mutton. As for pudding, that was a luxury out of fashion in the Kayll family, except on Sundays, for a long time.

They all went to bed that night in tolerably good spirits, dismissing cares and anxieties until the next week, and, instead of sighing too much for the absent one, looking forward to the time of his return, and rejoicing that one more day of his detention was gone.

The next was a soft sultry hazy morning, with thundery-looking clouds lying at first low round the horizon, then here and there slowly rising up in dark threatening masses. The air was heavy and oppressive, and the blacks lay about thickly, or lazily floated down from above. In spite of the unsettled look of the weather, the two little girls and Jack went to church, leaving Madge preparing the potatoes, Mrs. Kayll attending to various domestic duties with the baby on her arm, Bob cleaning knives and forks, and Jem looking on at first one, then another, with his hands in his pockets.

“I’ve had a nice easy time of it with the cooking since father went,” said Madge, scraping out the black eye of a potato. They had dropped into a way of speaking of Mr. Kayll as though he were on a visit, and were expected home at the latest on Tuesday. Mrs. Kayll, however, could not quite, as the children did, make the best of to-day, and leave to-morrow to take care of itself. It was not easy to forget that the milkman had refused to bring any more milk until his bill was paid, or that the butcher and baker would not let her have either bread or meat, unless she paid for them on the spot. Of course they had their own families to think about, and it was but natural that they should consider them first. But the thought of next week and its struggles, and the difficulty of feeding all the hungry mouths, made her look this morning very care-worn and old.

And even when her husband should come home, it might be some time before he was able to supply her with money, for lately he had had but little to do.

The potatoes were cooking; the mutton was beginning to sputter in the oven, and to smell very good, when the storm that had been threatening all the morning came on with violence. The claps of thunder grew nearer and louder, the lightning flashed in at all the windows, and after each flash Jem counted—“One—two—three”—to see how many miles away the storm actually was. But soon the thunder followed so quickly that there was no time to count at all—it was evidently just overhead.

Then the rain came down in torrents, and Mrs. Kayll looked anxiously out, and hoped those poor children were in shelter, for the church-goers had not yet come home, although it was past the usual time for their return.Madge looked in the oven to see that the meat was not cooking too fast, and then she and the boys ran upstairs to look from a bed-room window, and watch how the fierce rain pelted down on the dry road and beat up again in spray. They could not see this from the lower windows, as theirs being such an old house, and the road having been much raised since it was built, it stood quite in a hole, and there were four steps to go down from the gate to the door. The dwellings on each side were also lower than the roadway, but the Kaylls’ was the lowest of all.

How it rained! Faster and faster! Jem fancied this was how the heavy drops must have poured from the skies when the great flood was, and nearly all the world was drowned. He watched the little rivulets that ran down the hill at the foot of which they lived, noticed the stream by the side of the path growing wider and wider, and saw that the gratings above the drains were getting choked up with rubbish, so that, from letting the water run through too slowly, they came to not letting it run through at all.

“Oh, those children!” sighed Mrs. Kayll, looking anxiously up the hill. “I am afraid they will be soaked to the skin. Not in sight yet! Where can they be?”

And then she went down-stairs with Madge, leaving baby in Bob’s charge. Bob held him up where he too could see what was going on outside—the heavy rain still falling, the water beginning to stand in the road, in a pool that spread and spread—the passers-by, hastening home under dripping umbrellas, those who wanted to cross the road having to go far enough round, or else plucking up sufficient courage to wade through, ankle-deep, as though satisfied that they were already so wet that a little more or less could not make much difference.

Still heavily as before the rain fell, and the little streams flowed ever faster down the street. Jem was still thinking of the flood and staring out, when Mrs. Kayll’s voice called from below:

“Bob, come and help me here a minute. It’s beginning to come in at the front door.”

Bob ran down, but no help of his could stop the water out, for it was now fast pouring over from the pavement down the four steps and into the little area. Madge looked on, as it trickled and spread along the passage.

“It’s just the same at the back,” she said. “I don’t see that we can do anything but take some of the things upstairs if it keeps on. I wish it would leave off raining.”

“Your father always said we should be flooded one of these days, standing in a hole as we do,” said her mother disconsolately.

But instead of leaving off, it went on harder than ever, the water rushing down the hill and pouring into the house with such force that Mrs. Kayll, who had taken the baby from Bob, losing her nerve, opened the front door and dashed up the steps to the level of the road, calling to the children to follow. Bob and Madge ran after, to find that even on the pavement they were standing in an inch or two of water, while the rain beat on them fiercely.“Look, mother!” cried Bob excitedly. “It’s rising fast, it’s a foot deep at the very least in our parlour. And oh! what a shame! Our nice dinner will be spoiled!”

“There’s one comfort,” said Madge, who looked pale and frightened, “the carpet’s so bad already that being soaked can’t make it any worse.”

Mrs. Kayll did not answer. She was quite overcome by this new misfortune, and scarcely seemed to know what to do. Half mechanically she moved higher up the hill, trying by turning up her dress-skirt over him to shield the baby from the wet, lest, weak as he was after his illness, he should take a bad cold and be worse again. Someone, seeing this, put a big umbrella into her hand, from under which she looked back to see her little home getting every second more and more deeply immersed.

Her more fortunate neighbours, whose houses stood high and dry, came running out of their doors and begged her to go in with them.

“All right, mother. You and Madgie take baby in out of the wet,” said Bob eagerly. “It won’t hurt me, and I can let you know as soon as it’s any good for you to come back.”

Mrs. Kayll hesitated, but the baby was frightened, and as another flash of lightning was followed by a deafening peal of thunder the little thing began to cry. This plaintive sound brought her more to herself. Whatever happened to the house and its contents, baby must be taken care of, and not allowed to catch cold. And with that thought, she yielded to the entreaties of a woman she knew, who had taken her by the arm and was gently trying to draw her in, and merely saying, “Come, Madge,” disappeared from the sight of the curious eyes that were watching her from the windows on the opposite side of the way.

Madge went too, glad enough to get into shelter away from the beating rain and the flashes of lightning, of which she was somewhat afraid.

And all the while, in their bewilderment and distress, both mother and daughter had entirely forgotten that Jem was with them in the house when the water began to come in, and that they had not seen him since.