Again a dazzle of lightning, again a roar of thunder, and in an instant that little bundle of nerves had darted to the hall, and with both hands succeeded in turning the knob (the wind did the rest), and to our unutterable horror, we saw her little, white-robed figure dart down the steps, and standing on the bit of rain-soaked lawn, mad with rage, she lifted her challenging face to the black sky, and stamping her bare, little foot, she cried, against the wind, “How dare you, God? I’m little Marie Tyler, and I told you I was afraid! How dare you? a great big God like you, frighten a little girl like me?” and then she was in her mother’s arms, and was carried into the house dripping as from a river, and spitting and hissing like an enraged cat.
The storm ceased at last, at least the _outer_ storm; there was another coming, for where was my “peshous Dinah”?
Everyone looked, looked high and low, looked until we got to the place, where we stood and looked stupidly at one another, and then there came, in a strained whisper, from Marie: “What’s that?”
She pointed at a dripping bundle sticking in the broken window-pane. Mrs. Tyler screamed outright! Those cross-eyes looking at her from between those stubby feet. There was a wild _abandon_ in the attitude that shocked her! But her scream was as nothing compared to the succession of shrieks that broke from the throat of “Tyler’s pretty little devil”! “Who? a--a--ah! Who? a--a--ah! Who? a--a--ah!” she screamed after each “Who?”
At last she finished, “_Who_ put my ‘peshous Dinah’ in that hole? She shall be killed, all dead! and put in a hole, her own-self! She shall!! She shall!!!” She caught up a glass from the table and dashed it on the floor, breaking it in pieces. “Hurry! or I’ll break everything, I will!!” And when Dinah was pulled out and straightened, words of mine fail to describe her appearance!
Marie held loving little arms out to receive the dripping stop-gap, saying: “We’ll go to bed, right now, my ‘peshous Dinah’! Never mind your nighty, you’ll get cold! Come, and we’ll cuddle up, until you are all dry again!” And then the storm broke! It was simply impossible that Marie should be allowed to go to bed with that dripping bundle pressed in her arms, and it was equally impossible to make her obey or listen to reason. It was a wretched scene. The mother knelt to the child she had ruined, calling her, “her angel, her star, her flower,” and Marie gave her a kick or a push at each word, and swore oaths that a mule-driver would hesitate before ejecting in a row. Where had she learned them? Who knows? Who ever knows how a beloved child learns evil? But on and on went this battle, until at last, worn out with the past fright and the present rage, the little vixen fainted.