"You are quite right," she said to me as we sat alone that evening, "this sort of weather disturbs my tranquillity; it makes me restless and agitates my nerves. Last night I could not sleep; images of terror blended with my waking thoughts. I seemed to see great ships driving before the wind, and to hear the roaring of breakers and crashing of timbers against cruel rocks; and when I closed my eyes, it was only to see the whitened bones of mariners lying fathoms deep among green tangled seaweed." "Dear Miss Ruth, no wonder you look pale and depressed after such a night. Would you like me to sleep with you? the wind seems to act on me like a lullaby. I felt cradled in comfort last night." "You are so strong," she said, with a little sadness in her voice. "You have no nerves, no diseased sensibilities; you do not dread the evils you cannot see, the universe does not picture itself to you in dim terrors." "Why, no," I returned, wonderingly, for such suggestions were new to me. "Sleep your happy sleep, my dear," she said, tenderly, "and thank God for your perfect health, Esther. I dozed a little myself toward morning, before the day woke in its rage, and then I had a horrible sort of dream, a half-waking scare, bred of my night-terrors. "I thought I was tossing like a dead leaf in the gale; the wind had broken bounds, and carried me away bodily. Now I was lying along the margin of waves, and now swept in wide circles in the air. "The noise was maddening. The air seemed full of shrieks and cries, as though the universe were lost and bewailing itself, 'Lamentation and mourning and woe,' seemed written upon the lurid sky and sea. I thought of those poor lovers in Dante's 'Inferno,' blown like spectral leaves before the infernal winds of hell; but I was alone in this tumultuous torrent. "I felt myself sinking at last into the dim, choking surge--it was horribly real, Esther--and then some one caught me by the hair and drew me out, and the words came to me, 'for so He bringeth them to the haven where they would be.'" "How strange!" I exclaimed in an awed tone, for Miss Ruth's face was pale, and there was a touch of sadness in her voice. "It was almost a vision of one's life," she returned, slowly; "we drift hither and thither, blown by many a gust of passion over many an unseen danger. If we be not engulfed, it is because the Angel of His Providence watches over us; 'drawn out of many waters,' how many a life history can testify of that!" "We have our smooth days as well," I returned, cheerfully, "when the sun shines, and there are only ripples on the waters." "That is in youth," she replied; "later on the storms must come, and the wise mariner will prepare himself to meet them. We must not always be expecting fair weather. Do you not remember the lines of my favorite hymn: "'And oh, the joy upon that shore To tell our shipwrecked voyage o'er.'