"I'll take Tibbs's buggy and go down there right off.

Eph won't lose no time gittin' _here_!" And with this encouraging assurance he was flying forth, when he, like the others, was detained by her solicitous care.
She was a born mother.

He protested that in the buggy he would be perfectly sheltered; besides, there wasn't another umbrella about the place; he _liked_ to get wet, anyway; had always loved rain.

The end of it was that he went away in a sort of tremor, wearing her rain-cloak over his shoulders, which garment, as it covered its owner completely when she wore it, hung almost to his knees.

He darted around a corner; and there, breathing deeply, tenderly removed it; then, borrowing paper and cord at a neighboring store, wrapped it neatly, and stole back to the printing-office on the ground floor of the "Herald" building, and left the package in charge of Bud Tipworthy, mysteriously charging him to care for it as for his own life, and not to open it, but if the lady so much as set one foot out of doors before his return, to hand it to her with the message: "He borrowed another off J.Hankins." Left alone, the lady went to the desk and stood for a time looking gravely at Harkless's chair.