A THUNDERSTORM. 35

about round them, making a rustling noise in
the fallen leaves, and looking curiously at the
children, first with one eye and then with the
other. A little mouse, too, was very busy quite
near at hand, but they were too occupied to

’ seehim. Then a rabbit frisked backwards and

forwards across the path, not at all alarmed by
the voice of the reader, as she never moved
except to turn over a page.

Harry sat with his hands clasped round his
knee listening eagerly for each word, and fol-
lowing the story with an interest that made
him unconscious of everything else. Nellie,
too, was just as much absorbed, and read on
and on in ignorance of the change that was
taking place in the weather.

The clouds that had been lying low down on
the horizon, only raising here and there what
are known as “ thunder-heads,” had one after
another climbed up the sky until not a bit of
blue was visible. At the same time, so low
and distant that the sound might have been
mistaken for the rumble of a waggon passing
in the road, there was the growl of thunder.

Still Nellie’s monotonous voice went on,
Harry’s eyes fixing themselves on her face as