"How strange--how strange it all is!" she resumed, with a manner that betokened a strong nervous excitability. "Can this be the same world--these the same scenes that were so full of peace and beauty an hour ago? How tremendous is the contrast between the serene, lovely June day and evening just passed and this coming tempest, whose sullen roar I already hear with increasing dread! Mr. Morton, you said in jest that this was a day of fate. Why did you use the expression? It haunts me, oppresses me. Possibly it is. I rarely give way to presentiments, but I dread the coming of this storm inexpressibly. Oh!" and she trembled violently as a heavier peal than we had yet heard filled the wide valley with awful echoes. "Not even a sparrow shall fall to the ground without your Father. We are safe, my child. God will shield thee more lovingly than I;" and he drew her closer to him. "I know what you say is true, and yet I cannot control this mortal fear and weakness." "No, Miss Warren, you cannot," I said; "therefore do not blame yourself. You tremble as these trees and shrubs will be agitated in a few moments, because you cannot help it." "You are not so moved." "No, nor will that post be moved," I replied, with a reckless laugh. "I must admit that I am very much excited, however, for the air is full of electricity. I can't help thinking of the little robins in a home open to the sky." Her only answer was a low sob, but not for a moment did she take her wide, terror-stricken gaze from the cloud whose slow, deliberate advance was more terrible than gusty violence would have been. The phenomena had now become so awful that we did not speak again for some moments. The great inky mass was extending toward the eastward, and approaching the fire burning on the mountain-top, and the moon rising above and to the left of it; and from beneath its black shadow came a heavy, muffled sound that every moment deepened and intensified. Suddenly, as if shaken by a giant's hands, the tree-tops above us swayed to and fro; then the shrubbery along the paths seemed full of wild terror and writhed in every direction. Hitherto the moon had shone on the cloud with as serene a face as that with which Mr. Yocomb had watched its approach, but now a scud of vapor swept like a sudden pallor across her disk, giving one the odd impression that she had just realized her peril, and then an abyss of darkness swallowed her up. For a few moments longer the fire burned on, and then the cloud with its torrents settled down upon it, and the luridly luminous point became opaque. The night now alternated between utter darkness and a glare in which every leaf and even the color of the tossing roses were distinct.