Three Little Women

" The afternoon was a wild one. All day driving sheets of rain had swept along the streets of Riveredge, hurled against windowpanes by fierce gusts of wind, or dashed in miniature rivers across piazzas. At noon it seemed as though the wind meant to change to the westward and the clouds break, but the promise of better weather had failed, and although the rain now fell only fitfully in drenching showers, and one could ¿run between the drops¿ the wind still blustered and fumed, tossing the wayfarers about, and tearing from the trees what foliage the rain had spared, to hurl it to the ground in sodden masses. It was more like a late November than a late September day, and had a depressing effect upon everybody. ¿I want to go out; I want to go out; I want to go out, out, OUT!¿ cried little Jean Carruth, pressing her face against the window-pane until from the outside her nose appeared like a bit of white paper stuck fast to the glass. ¿If you do yoüll get wet, wet, WET, as sop, sop, SOP, and then mother¿ll ask what we were about to let you,¿ said a laughing voice from the farther side of the room, where Constance, her sister, nearly five years her senior, was busily engaged in trimming a hat, holding it from her to get the effect of a fascinating bow she had just pinned upon one side. ¿But I haven¿t a single thing to do. All my lessons for Monday are finished; I¿m tired of stories; I¿m tired of fancy work, and I¿m tired of¿ everythingand I want to go out,¿ ended the woe-begone voice in rapid crescendo. ¿Do you think it would hurt her to go, Eleanor?¿ asked Constance, turning toward a girl who sat at a pretty desk, her elbows resting upon it and her hands propping her chin as she pored over a copy of the French Revolution, but who failed to take the least notice of the question"