weather.     

       “Isn’t the wind rising?” she said.     

       There could be no doubt of it. The leaves in the garden were beginning to rustle, and the pattering of the rain sounded on the windows.     

       Francine (as her straight chin proclaimed to all students of physiognomy)       was an obstinate girl. Determined to carry her point she tried Emily’s own system on Emily herself—she put questions.     

       “Have you been long at this school?”      

       “More than three years.”      

       “Have you got any brothers and sisters?”      

       “I am the only child.”      

       “Are your father and mother alive?”      

       Emily suddenly raised herself in bed.     

       “Wait a minute,” she said; “I think I hear it again.”      

       “The creaking on the stairs?”      

       “Yes.”      

       Either she was mistaken, or the change for the worse in the weather made it not easy to hear slight noises in the house. The wind was still rising. The passage of it through the great trees in the garden began to sound like the fall of waves on a distant beach. It drove the rain—a heavy downpour by this time—rattling against the windows.     

       “Almost a storm, isn’t it?” Emily said     

       Francine’s last question had not been answered yet. She took the earliest opportunity of repeating it:     

       “Never mind the weather,” she said. “Tell me about your father and mother. Are they both alive?”      

       Emily’s reply only related to one of her parents.     

       “My mother died before I was old enough to feel my loss.”      

 Prev. P 18/338 next