Then it relented, dribbled, shook down a few last drops; and passed on to the countryside.  Windows went up; eaves and full gutters plashed and gurgled; clearer light fell; then, in a moment, sunshine rushed upon shining green trees and green grass; doors opened—­and out came the children!

Shouting, they ran to the flooded gutters.  Here were rivers, lakes, and oceans for navigation; easy pilotage, for the steersman had but to wade beside his craft and guide it with a twig.  Jane’s timely boat was one of the first to reach the water.

Her mother had been kind, and Jane, with shoes and stockings left behind her on the porch, was a happy sailor as she waded knee-deep along the brimming curbstones.  At the corner below the house of the Baxters, the street was flooded clear across, and Jane’s boat, following the current, proceeded gallantly onward here, sailed down the next block, and was thoughtlessly entering a sewer when she snatched it out of the water.  Looking about her, she perceived a gutter which seemed even lovelier than the one she had followed.  It was deeper and broader and perhaps a little browner, wherefore she launched her ship upon its dimpled bosom and explored it as far as the next sewer-hole or portage.  Thus the voyage continued for several blocks with only one accident—­which might have happened to anybody.  It was an accident in the nature of a fall, caused by the sliding of Jane’s left foot on some slippery mud.  This treacherous substance, covered with water, could not have been anticipated; consequently Jane’s emotions were those of indignation rather than of culpability.  Upon rising, she debated whether or not she should return to her dwelling, inclining to the opinion that the authorities there would have taken the affirmative; but as she was wet not much above the waist, and the guilt lay all upon the mud, she decided that such an interruption of her journey would be a gross injustice to herself.  Navigation was reopened.

Presently the boat wandered into a miniature whirlpool, grooved in a spiral and pleasant to see.  Slowly the water went round and round, and so did the boat without any assistance from Jane.  Watching this movement thoughtfully, she brought forth from her drenched pocket some sodden whitish disks, recognizable as having been crackers, and began to eat them.  Thus absorbed, she failed at first to notice the approach of two young people along the sidewalk.

They were the entranced William and Miss Pratt; and their appearance offered a suggestive contrast in relative humidity.  In charming and tender-colored fabrics, fluffy and cool and summery, she was specklessly dry; not a drop had touched even the little pink parasol over her shoulder, not one had fallen upon the tiny white doglet drowsing upon her arm.  But William was wet—­he was still more than merely damp, though they had evidently walked some distance since the rain had ceased to fall.  His new hat was a mucilaginous ruin; his dank coat sagged; his shapeless trousers flopped heavily, and his shoes gave forth marshy sounds as he walked.