IN THE RAIN 



SILENT, invisible, unromantic, but most drenching 

 drizzle. It comes from the unmoving pall of a white 

 mist that may be piled to the top of our atmosphere 

 or may be only a few yards thick between us and the 

 sun a question of much moment to those who believe 

 that such a day of all-pervading damp is one of the 

 days that cannot be spent in the open. It only 

 presents us with the trifling problem, whether or no 

 to take a cape or mackintosh to cover the shoulders. 

 And whether the optimistic belief that the cloth of 

 descending moisture is getting threadbare is sound or 

 not, the mackintosh is a good thought in view of the fact 

 that we expect to walk under dripping trees. Every 

 branch holds a shower-bath booby-trap waiting for 

 him who unwittingly touches the spring. The birch 

 trees hold their diamonds best, every twig of that 

 drooping, fountain-like growth having its pendulous 

 globule. No water comes down those silvery or 

 deeply scored trunks. Every drop that falls on an 

 outer branch flows not inward but outward, not from 

 tributary to river, but, so it seems, from river to 

 rivulet, thence to the tiny invisible twig, to pause 

 and twinkle, as though hesitating to take the long 

 drop to the ground. 



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