Others besides themselves had been surprised in the ravine, and every few minutes another and another wet figure would come flying down the path, so that the little refuge was soon full.  The storm lasted half an hour, then it scattered as rapidly as it had come, the sun broke out brilliantly, and the drive home would have been delightful if it had not been for the sad fact that Mrs. Watson had left her parasol in the carriage, and it had been wet, and somewhat stained by the india-rubber blanket which had been thrown over it for protection.  Her lamentations were pathetic.

“Jane Phillips gave it to me,—­she was a Sampson, you know,—­and I thought ever so much of it.  It was at Hovey’s—­We were there together, and I admired it; and she said, ‘Mrs. Watson, you must let me—­’ Six dollars was the price of it.  That’s a good deal for a parasol, you know, unless it’s really a nice one; but Hovey’s things are always—­I had the handle shortened a little just before I came away, too, so that it would go into my trunk; it had to be mended anyhow, so that it seemed a good—­Dear, dear! and now it’s spoiled!  What a pity I left it in the carriage!  I shall know better another time, but this climate is so different.  It never rains in this way at home.  It takes a little while about it, and gives notice; and we say that there’s going to be a northeaster, or that it looks like a thunder-storm, and we put on our second-best clothes or we stay at home.  It’s a great deal nicer, I think.”

“I am so sorry,” said kind little Mrs. Hope.  “Our storms out here do come up very suddenly.  I wish I had noticed that you had left your parasol.  Well, Clover, you’ve had a chance now to see the doctor’s beautiful Colorado hail and thunder to perfection.  How do you like them?”

“I like everything in Colorado, I believe,” replied Clover, laughing.  “I won’t even except the hail.”

“She’s the girl for this part of the world,” cried Dr. Hope, approvingly.  “She’d make a first-rate pioneer.  We’ll keep her out here, Mary, and never let her go home.  She was born to live at the West.”

“Was I?  It seems queer then that I should have been born to live in Burnet.”

“Oh, we’ll change all that.”

“I’m sure I don’t see how.”

“There are ways and means,” oracularly.

Mrs. Watson was so cast down by the misadventure to her parasol that she expressed no regret at not being asked to join in the picnic next day, especially as she understood that it consisted of young people.  Mrs. Hope very rightly decided that a whole day out of doors, in a rough place, would give pain rather than pleasure to a person who was both so feeble and so fussy, and did not suggest her going.  Clover and Phil waked up quite fresh and untired after a sound night’s sleep.  There seemed no limit to what might be done and enjoyed in that inexhaustibly renovating air.