WE don't mean to
get wet - no, no."
And when the afternoon was nearly gone, and still there was no sign of
rain, we tried to cheer ourselves up with the idea that it would come
down all at once, just as the people had started for home, and were out
of the reach of any shelter, and that they would thus get more drenched
than ever. But not a drop ever fell, and it finished a grand day, and a
lovely night after it.
The next morning we would read that it was going to be a "warm, fine to
set-fair day; much heat;" and we would dress ourselves in flimsy things,
and go out, and, half-an-hour after we had started, it would commence to
rain hard, and a bitterly cold wind would spring up, and both would keep
on steadily for the whole day, and we would come home with colds and
rheumatism all over us, and go to bed.
The weather is a thing that is beyond me altogether. I never can
understand it. The barometer is useless: it is as misleading as the
newspaper forecast.
There was one hanging up in a hotel at Oxford at which I was staying last
spring, and, when I got there, it was pointing to "set fair." It was
simply pouring with rain outside, and had been all day; and I couldn't
quite make matters out. I tapped the barometer, and it jumped up and
pointed to "very dry." The Boots stopped as he was passing, and said he
expected it meant to-morrow.
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