I can stand on one foot,' Ann Eliza said; and nothing loth Tom put her down, a most forlorn and dilapidated piece of humanity as she stood leaning against him with the light of the piazza lamp falling full upon her.
Her little French boots, which had partly done the mischief, were spoiled, and the heel of one of them had been nearly wrenched off when she stumbled over the stone.

Her India muslin, with its sash, and ribbons, and streamers, was torn in places and bedraggled with mud.

She had lost her hat in the woods, and the wind and the rain had held high carnival in her loosely-arranged hair, whose color Tom so detested, and which streamed down her back in many little wet tags, giving her the look of a drowned rat after it has been tortured in a trap.
Old Peterkin was reading his evening paper when Tom's sharp summons sounded through the house, making him jump from the chair, as he exclaimed: 'Jiminy hoe-cakes! Who can that be in this storm ?' He had seen Billy off in the train, and had returned home just as the rain began to fall.

Naturally both he and his wife had felt some anxiety on Ann Eliza's account, but had concluded that if the storm continued she would remain at Grassy Spring, and if it cleared in time they would send the carriage for her.

So neither thought of her when the loud ring came, startling them both so much.