His father thought it was probably going to rain, and that at any rate it was very doubtful whether Uncle George would come.  However, he said they should soon see, and, true enough, just as they were rising from the breakfast table, a chaise drove up to the door, and out jumped Uncle George and cousin Lucy.

Lucy was a very pleasant little blue-eyed girl, two or three years older than Rollo.  She had a small tin pail in her hand, with a cover upon it.

“Good morning, Rollo,” said she.  “Have you got your basket ready?”

“Yes,” said Rollo; “but I am afraid it is going to rain.”

While the children were saying this, Uncle George said to Rollo’s father,

“I suppose we shall have to give up our expedition to-day.  I am in hopes we are going to have some rain.”

“In hopes,” thought Rollo; “that is very strange when we want to go a blueberrying.”

Rollo’s father and mother and his uncle looked at the clouds all around.  They concluded that there was every appearance of rain, and that it would be best to postpone their excursion, and then went into the house.  Rollo was very confident it would not rain, and was very eager to have them go.  He asked Lucy if she did not think it was going to be pleasant, but Lucy was more modest and reasonable than he was, and said that she did not know; she could not judge of the weather so well as her father.

Rollo began by this time to be considerably out of humor.  He said he knew it was not going to rain, and he did not see why they might not go.  He did not believe it would rain a drop all day.

Lucy just then pointed down to a little dark spot on the stone step of the door, where a drop had just fallen, and asked Rollo what he called that.

“And that,—­and that,—­and that,” said she, pointing to several other drops.

Rollo at first insisted that that was not rain, but some little spots on the stone.

Then Lucy reached out her hand and said,

“Hold out your hand so, Rollo, and you will feel the drops coming down out of the sky.”

Rollo held out his hand a moment, but then immediately withdrew it, saying, impatiently, that he did not care; it was not rain; at any rate it was only a little sprinkling.

Lucy observed that Rollo was getting very much out of humor, and she tried to please him by saying,

“Rollo, I would not mind.  If it does rain, I will ask my father to let me stay and play with you to-day, and we can have a fine time up in your little room.”

“No, we cannot,” said Rollo; “and besides, they will not let you stay, I know.  I went yesterday to ask my father to let Jonas go with us to-day, and he would not.”

It was certainly very unreasonable for Rollo to imagine that his father and uncle would be unwilling to have Lucy stay just because it had not been convenient to let Jonas go with them.  But when children are out of humor, they are always very unreasonable.