I must stay somewhere until my clothes were dry, and I should be glad to stop in my present comfortable quarters.
So I sat still and smoked, and very soon I heard the big shoes of the little man grating upon the gravel as he walked rapidly away from the house.

Now came the good woman out upon the piazza to ask me if I had found my tobacco dry.

"Because if it's damp," said she, "my man has some very good 'baccy in his jar." I assured her that my pouch had kept dry; and then, as she seemed inclined to talk, I begged her to sit down if she did not mind the pipe.

Down she sat, and steadily she talked.

She congratulated herself on her happy thought to light the hall lamp, or I might never have noticed the house in the darkness, and she would have been sorry enough if I had had to keep on the road for another half-hour in that dreadful rain.
On she talked in the most cheerful and communicative way, until suddenly she rose with a start.