While they were having their tea, with mother sitting by, working and chattering to them, they heard a knock at the door, and when they opened it there was father standing in the unused kitchen, with the water running off his waterproof coat, making little streams all over the stone floor.
"I have been down to look at the river," he said to Mrs.Norton.

"Keep off, children! I'm much too wet to touch.

Such rain! It does know how to come down here! The water's over the road just by the stepping-stones.

John Backhouse says if it goes on another twenty-four hours like this, there'll be no getting to Wanwick by the road, on foot." "Father," said Milly, looking at him with a very solemn face, "wouldn't it be dreadful if it went on raining and raining, and if the river came up and up, right up to the drive and into the hall, and we all had to sit upstairs, and the butcher couldn't bring us any meat, and John Backhouse couldn't bring us any milk, and we all _died_ of hunger." "Then they would put us into some black boxes," said Olly, cheerfully, with his mouth full of bread and butter, "and they would put the black boxes into some boats, and take us right away and bury us krick--wouldn't they, mother ?" "Well, but--" said Mr.Norton, who had by this time got rid of his wet coat, and was seated by Milly, helping himself to some tea, "suppose we got into the boats before we were dead, and rowed away to Windermere station ?" "Oh no! father," said Milly, who always liked her stories to be as gloomy as possible, "they wouldn't know anything about us till we were dead you know, and then they'd come and find us, and be _very_ sorry for us, and say, 'Oh dear! oh dear! what a pity!'" Olly began to look so dismal as Milly's fancies grew more and more melancholy, that Mrs.Norton took to laughing at them all.

What did they know about Westmoreland rain indeed.