"This is no laughing matter." She paced the room excitedly.

"I don't like it! I don't like it!" Arnold looked after her, with a stare of boyish wonder.
"What puts you out so ?" he asked.

"Is it the storm ?" She threw herself on the sofa again.

"Yes," she said, shortly.

"It's the storm." Arnold's inexhaustible good-nature was at once roused to activity again.
"Shall we have the candles," he suggested, "and shut the weather out ?" She turned irritably on the sofa, without replying.