Is n't it worthwhile to work a little and prepare the way for them -- make just one step in their path easier ? '' `` Oh , my mind agrees with you , Anne . But my soul remains doleful and uninspired . I 'm always grubby and dingy on rainy nights . '' `` Some nights I like the rain -- I like to lie in bed and hear it pattering on the roof and drifting through the pines . '' `` I like it when it stays on the roof , '' said Stella . `` It does n't always . I spent a gruesome night in an old country farmhouse last summer . The roof leaked and the rain came pattering down on my bed . There was no poetry in THAT . I had to get up in the ` mirk midnight ' and chivy round to pull the bedstead out of the drip -- and it was one of those solid , old-fashioned beds that weigh a ton -- more or less . And then that drip-drop , drip-drop kept up all night until my nerves just went to pieces . You 've no idea what an eerie noise a great drop of rain falling with a mushy thud on a bare floor makes in the night . It sounds like ghostly footsteps and all that sort of thing . What are you laughing over , Anne ? '' `` These stories . As Phil would say they are killing -- in more senses than one , for everybody died in them . What dazzlingly lovely heroines we had -- and how we dressed them ! `` Silks -- satins -- velvets -- jewels -- laces -- they never wore anything else . Here is one of Jane Andrews ' stories depicting her heroine as sleeping in a beautiful white satin nightdress trimmed with seed pearls . ''
`` Go XXXXX , '' said Stella .
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