“But the sun is so bright—­and a minute ago I was thinking that it was lucky the branches are so thick on this old oak, for the sunshine was really uncomfortably hot.  It can’t rain right away.  I’ll bring out everything, and be ready to offer them tea the minute they’ve said ’Good afternoon.’”

Sally hurried away to the house, leaving Uncle Timothy standing guard over the tea-table and keeping a weather eye on the gathering patch of clouds.

But it could rain right away, as it presently proved.  By the time Sally crossed the lawn with her plates of bread and butter and tiny sugary cakes, Mary Ann following with the tray holding the tea equipage, there were strong indications of what was soon to happen.  Sally had not more than decided that it was best to retreat to the porch and await developments, than the first drops on her upturned forehead warned her that the retreat could not be too hasty.

The Ferry party, coming through the gap in the hedge a few minutes earlier than they would have done if it had not seemed expedient to forestall the gathering shower, saw the scurrying hosts.  Jarvis and Max were with them, for it was Saturday afternoon.  The Ferrys themselves were forced to make haste also, and as a result, guests and hostess, tea-tray and chairs, bread-and-butter and violets, reached the shelter of the big porch at nearly the same time, and sixty seconds later the first pursuing dash of rain rattled against the pillars.

“It’s too bad,” cried Sally, breathless and laughing, as she turned around to greet her guests, little curls escaping about her forehead and over her ears, in spite of all her previous care to insure their smooth order.  But her hand gave warm welcome all around the circle, and she led the party into the wide hall, now transformed by the waxing of its dark floor and the presence of several old-time rag rugs, into a hospitable-looking entrance.  “Put the tea-table here by the open door, please, Max,” she directed.  “We’ll be as near out of doors as we can.”

At the first sound of voices Mrs. Burnside and Josephine had appeared, and between them things were in order in the new setting in less time than it takes to tell it.  A great bunch of daffodils on an old table near the door made the spot seem quite festive enough for the occasion, and Sally, when she had caught her breath and pushed back the distracting curls, proved herself to possess a fair amount of the poise of the accustomed hostess whom nothing can really upset.  She rearranged her tea-table just inside the hall door, and before she had finished, a dash of sunshine fell across it, making her declare, as she settled the bowl of violets, that if the shower could just have confined its efforts to her garden, which needed watering, and not to sprinkling the lawn, which didn’t need it, she would not have felt so ungrateful to it.

“And we came especially to see the garden,” said Janet Ferry.  “We’ve heard of that garden in every letter since the first of April.”  She looked at her brother with a mischievous twinkle in her hazel eyes, much like his own.