In law a stroke of lightning is known as an Act of God. If such is the case, it seems strange that this stroke should have fallen on Sunday night and in a God-fearing and God-serving household. As a matter of fact, Tom Jennings, his wife and three children had just driven home from church at Breton Junction and Tom, assisted by Frank, his boy of sixteen, had put up the horses. Then, as the cloud was an unusually threatening one, they all gathered in the parlour. It was the ordinary parlour of country people who are self-respecting but neither well-to-do nor educated. There was a fancy organ, a flowered carpet; there were gaudy vases and solemn-looking enlarged crayon portraits. Near a stiffly curtained window was a sort of family altar--a table on which lay a family Bible. This Bible, a ponderous embossed volume with brass guards and clasps, reposed on a blue-velvet table cover that almost reached the floor. On the cover was worked a cross and a crown with the legend: "He Must Bear a Cross Who Would Wear a Crown." When, the storm having burst on this household, Mac scratched at the door, Tom Jennings himself, a tall, raw-boned, sunburnt man, rose and let him in with some good-humoured remark. Mac was a young setter, with white, silken, curly coat and black, silken, curly ears. He looked self-consciously into the faces of the family, who were smiling at his fears; then, with a queer expression on his face, as if he, too, knew it was funny, he went to the family altar, pushed aside the embossed velvet cover, and lay down under the table. The children laughed, Tom Jennings and Frank, a lanky, handsome, serious-faced lad smiled. Mac always did this in a thunderstorm. Just before the blow came, they heard him, as if he were still reflecting humorously upon his fears, tap the floor with his tail. Immediately there was the shiver of broken glass, a crash, a child's suppressed scream, and for a moment, as the lamp went out, blackness. But only for a moment; for next, above the shining brass trimmings of the Bible, there glowed for several vivid seconds blue-and-white flames like a halo. There was no very clear recollection of what happened afterward. Having assured himself that wife and children were safe, Tom Jennings, followed by the boy Frank, ran out into the yard by the side door which they left open, and looked at the roof of the house. If any fire had started it had been drowned at once by deluges of rain. When father and son returned, Mrs. Jennings had lit another lamp. Here they all were, with white faces. Only Mac was gone. For the better part of three days they searched for him, in the attic, in the cellar, in the barns and outhouses, in the woods near by. On the afternoon of the third day, Jennings stooped down and peered underneath the corn crib. It was set low to the ground, and two sides were boarded up. On the unboarded side weeds had grown. It was quite dark underneath.