Spouts of
water ran off the carriage top down the oil cloth apron which
protected Robert and his grandmother. Mrs. Tracy held her little girl
in her lap, and leaned back with an expression of perfect happiness.
The rain came just as her comfort had come, after so much parching
suspense. Aunt Corinne wondered in silence if anything could be nicer
than riding under a snug cover on which the sky-streams pelted,
through a wonderland of fragrance. Every grateful shrub and bit of
sod, the pawpaw leaves and spicewood stems, the half-formed hazel-nuts
in fluted sheaths, and even new hay-stacks in the meadows, breathed
out their best to the rain. The world never seems so fresh and lovable
as after a June shower.
Presently the sun was shining, and the ground-incense steaming with
stronger sweetness, and they came to the wet 'pike stretching like a
russet-colored ribbon east and west, and turned west toward
Indianapolis.
On the 'pike they met another of the men sent out by Mrs. Tracy and
the lawyer. His horse's coat was smoking. Mrs. Tracy took up a gold
pencil attached to her watch, and wrote a note to the lawyer. She was
going on to the city, and would return directly home with her child.
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