In my brief backward look at Heliobas, I noted that when that far-distant thunder sounded, he grew very pale. Why? He was certainly not one to have any dread of a storm--he was absolutely destitute of fear. I went into the drawing-room with a hesitating step--my instincts were all awake and beginning to warn me, and I murmured softly a prayer to that strong, invisible majestic spirit which I knew must be near me--my guardian Angel. I was answered instantly--my foreboding grew into a positive certainty that some danger menaced Heliobas, and that if I desired to be his friend, I must be prepared for an emergency. Receiving this, as all such impressions should be received, as a direct message sent me for my guidance, I grew calmer, and braced up my energies to oppose SOMETHING, though I knew not what. Zara was showing her lady-visitors a large album of Italian photographs, and explaining them as she turned the leaves. As I entered the room, she said eagerly to me: "Play to us, dear! Something soft and plaintive. We all delight in your music, you know." "Did you hear the thunder just now?" I asked irrelevantly. "It WAS thunder? I thought so!" said Mrs. Everard. "Oh, I do hope there is not going to be a storm! I am so afraid of a storm!" "You are nervous?" questioned Zara kindly, as she engaged her attention with some very fine specimens among the photographs, consisting of views from Venice. "Well, I suppose I am," returned Amy, half laughing. "Yet I am plucky about most things, too. Still I don't like to hear the elements quarrelling together--they are too much in earnest about it--and no person can pacify them." Zara smiled, and gently repeated her request to me for some music--a request in which Mrs. Challoner and her daughters eagerly joined. As I went to the piano I thought of Edgar Allan Poe's exquisite poem: "In Heaven a spirit doth dwell, Whose heart-strings are a lute; None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars, so legends tell, Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice--all mute." As I poised my fingers above the keys of the instrument, another long, low, ominous roll of thunder swept up from the distance and made the room tremble. "Play--play, for goodness' sake!" exclaimed Mrs. Everard; "and then we shall not be obliged to fix our attention on the approaching storm!" I played a few soft opening arpeggio passages, while Zara seated herself in an easy-chair near the window, and the other ladies arranged themselves on sofas and ottomans to their satisfaction. The room was exceedingly close: and the scent of the flowers that were placed about in profusion was almost too sweet and overpowering. "And they say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israfeli's fire Is owing to that lyre, By which lie sits and sings,-- The trembling living wire Of those unusual strings."