said I, bewildered, “ — if you are like to take offense at everything I say, or look, or do, I’ll find a hospitable tree somewhere — — ”

“One moment, sir — — ”

“Well?”

She stood looking at me in the doorway, then slowly dropped her eyes, and in the same law voice I had heard once before:

“I ask your pardon once again,” she said. “Please to come inside — and close the door. An open door draws lightning.”

It was already drawing the rain in violent gusts.

The thunder began to bang with that metallic and fizzling tone which it takes on when the bolts