“No danger; hold fast as you are,” Jack answered cheerily, rather enjoying the feeling of the two arms clasping his neck so tightly.

What Howard felt was streams of water trickling down his back from the umbrella, which Sam held at exactly the right angle for him to get the full benefit of a bath between his collar and his neck.  He did not like it, and was in a bad frame of mind mentally, when, after what seemed an eternity to Eloise, they came to three or four squat-roofed houses in a row, at one of which Sam stopped, confidently affirming it was the Widder Biggs’s, although he could not see the “lalock and pineys.”

“Knock louder!  Kick, if necessary,” Howard said, applying his own foot to the door as there came no answer to Sam’s first appeal.

There was a louder knock and call, and at last a glimmer of light inside.  Somebody was lighting a candle, which was at once extinguished when the door was open, and a gust of wind and rain swept in.

“Are you Mrs. Biggs?” Sam asked, as a tall figure in a very short night-robe was for a moment visible.

“Mrs. Biggs!  Thunder, no!  Don’t you know a man from a woman?  She lives second house from here,” was the masculine response.

The door was shut with a bang, and the cortege moved on to the third house, which, by investigating the lilac bushes and peonies, Sam made out belonged to the Widder Biggs.  It was harder to rouse her than it had been to rouse her neighbor.  She was a little deaf, and the noise of the wind and rain added to the difficulty.  When she did awaken her first thought was of burglars, and there was a loud cry to her son Tim to come quick and bring his gun, for somebody was breaking into the house.

“Robbers don’t make such a noise as that!  Open your window and see who’s there,” was Tim’s sleepy answer, as Sam’s blows fell heavily upon the door, accompanied with thuds from Howard’s foot.

Mrs. Biggs opened her window cautiously, and thrust out her head, minus her false hair, and enveloped in a cotton nightcap.

“Who is it?  What has happened?  Anybody sick or dead?” she asked; and Sam replied, “Miss Smith is here with a broken laig, for’t I know!”

“Miss Smith!  A broken leg!  For the land’s sake, Tim, get up quick!” the widow gasped.

Closing the window and putting on a skirt, she descended to the kitchen, lighted an oil lamp, and, throwing open the door, looked at the group outside.  She was prepared for Sam and Miss Smith, and did not mind her deshabille for them.  But at the sight of two gentlemen, and one of them young Mr. Crompton, she came near dropping her lamp.

“Gracious goodness!” she exclaimed.  “Mr. Crompton!  And I half-dressed!  Wait till I get on some clothes, and my hair, and my teeth.  I am a sight to behold.”

“Never mind your teeth, nor your hair, nor your best gown,” Sam said, pushing open the door Mrs. Biggs had partially closed, and entering the house, followed by Howard and Jack, with Eloise still clinging to Jack’s neck, and half fainting with the pain in her ankle which had increased from hanging down so long.