CHAPTER XXXIX.
Thursday evening was a time of great rejoicing with me whenever a terrible storm descended upon Limoise, and thus made it impossible for me to return home that night.
It happened occasionally; and since I had had the experience, I used to hope that it might occur often, and especially did I wish for a storm when I had failed to prepare my lessons.

One inhuman professor had instituted Thursday tasks, and it was necessary for me to drag my text and copy-books with me to Limoise; my beloved holidays, spent in the sweet open air, were overcast by their dark shadow.
One evening at about eight o'clock the much desired storm broke upon us with superb fury.

Lucette and I were in the large drawing-room that resounded with the noise of the thunder, and we felt none too safe there.

Its great wall-spaces were broken by only two or three old engravings in ancient frames.

Lucette, under her mother's direction, was putting the finishing touches to a piece of needle work, and, on the rather worn-out piano, I was playing, with the soft pedal down, one of Rameau's dances; the old-fashioned music sounded exquisite to me as it mingled with the noise of the great thunder claps.
When Lucette's work was completed, she turned over the leaves of my copy-book lying on the table.