It had rained heavily in the night, with thunder and lightning, but nature seemed to have no mind to-day to carry out her coquettish love of contrasts; she did not laugh, as usual, with redoubled gayety in blue sky and golden sunshine on forest and field: gloomily she spread a gray curtain over the landscape, so uniformly gray that the sun could not find the smallest cleft through which to send down a friendly greeting, and it rained unceasingly, a perfect country rain.
Frank came back from the fields rejoicing over the weather, and Gertrude waved her handkerchief to him out of the window as she did every morning.
"All the flowers are ruined, Frank," she cried down to him, "what a pity!"
He came up in high good humor. "No money could pay for this rain, darling," he said; "I am a real farmer now, my mood varies according to the weather."
"And mine too!" remarked his wife. "Such a gray day makes me melancholy."
He went towards her as she sat at her writing-table turning over books and papers.
"Just look, Frank," as she held out to him a packet daintily tied up with blue ribbons; "these are all verses of yours, arranged according to order. When we have our silver wedding I shall have them printed and bound. These on cream-colored paper were written during our engagement, and these different scraps, white and blue and gray, were written since our marriage, when you take anything that comes, thinking I suppose that it is good enough for _Mrs._ Gertrude."
She looked up at him with a smile. He bent down over her,
"And now I shall buy a very special kind of paper for my next verses, Gertrude."
"Bright, like the little bundles the storks carry under their wings. And I shall write on it--"
She grew crimson. "A cradle-song," she finished softly.
He nodded and put her hand to his lips. But she threw both arms round his neck. "Then it would be sweet and home-like, Frank. Then we should love each other better than ever--if that were possible."
"Here, little wife, I wrote this for you today in the field in the rain." He took out his note-book from his pocket and put it in her hand.
"I will just go and see what the judge is about, the rascal," he called back from the door.
And she sat still and read, her face as grave and earnest as if she were reading in the Bible.