We would dearly have loved to leave the candle burning , but Aunt Janet 's decree regarding this was as inexorable as any of Mede and Persia . Out the candle must go ; and we lay there , quaking , with the wild rain streaming down on the roof above us , and the voices of the storm wailing through the writhing spruce trees . CHAPTER XX . THE JUDGMENT SUNDAY Sunday morning broke , dull and gray . The rain had ceased , but the clouds hung dark and brooding above a world which , in its windless calm , following the spent storm-throe , seemed to us to be waiting `` till judgment spoke the doom of fate . '' We were all up early . None of us , it appeared , had slept well , and some of us not at all . The Story Girl had been among the latter , and she looked very pale and wan , with black shadows under her deep-set eyes . Peter , however , had slept soundly enough after twelve o'clock . `` When you 've been stumping out elderberries all the afternoon it 'll take more than the Judgment Day to keep you awake all night , '' he said . `` But when I woke up this morning it was just awful . I 'd forgot it for a moment , and then it all came back with a rush , and I was worse scared than before . '' Cecily was pale but brave . For the first time in years she had not put her hair up in curlers on Saturday night . It was brushed and braided with Puritan simplicity . `` If it 's the Judgment Day I do n't care whether my hair is curly or not , '' she said . `` Well , '' said Aunt Janet , when we all descended to the kitchen , `` this is the first time you young ones have ever all got up without being called , and that 's a fact . '' At breakfast our appetites were poor . How could the grown-ups eat as they did ? After breakfast and the necessary chores there was the forenoon to be lived through .
XXXXX , true to his word , got out his Bible and began to read from the first chapter in Genesis .
Day Janet Mede Persia Peter XX elderberries first morning storm