THE GOOD MISS KENDRICKS. 5

of dinners and dinner-eating guests, who did not
notice, as those did who were just coming into the
fair, how clouds had gathered from the south-west,
and threatened rain; a gusty wind, too, had arisen,
and whirled the dust along the roads, and made a
strange commotion among the booths and stalls in
the market-place. It grew cold and dull ; and then,
just when dinner was over, and everybody was in the
fair, and wanted to enjoy themselves, it really began
to rain, and to rain in good earnest It was no
shower ; there was no prospect of its soon being over;
the sky was all one sullen mass of smoke-coloured
cloud; and down, down, down came the soaking
rain. The kennels soon ran over ; and the badly-
paved market-place was full of puddles, into which
people unwittingly stepped, ankle-deep. It really
was quite a melancholy thing to hear then the screech
of a tin penny-trumpet, or the bark of a woolly dog
in a little child’s hand, as it stood, sheltering, with its
mother, in a crowd of people, under an entry, yet
never wondering, dear little soul, as they did, how in
the world it was ever to get home. People had not
brought umbrellas with them; and it was quite
pitiable for anybody, but those who sold ribbons, to
see smart girls walking along with pocket-hand-
kerchiefs over their bonnets, quite wet through, and
which now were all stained with the mingling and
dripping dyes of their so lately blushing or verdant
honours. People crowded into booths or under stalls
—not to make purchases, but to find shelter ; and
went by throngs into the wild-beast show and the
theatre, not so much to be entertained, as to get out
of the rain ; and all the time could think of nothing
but how wet they were, and wonder how, if it
B 2