Impressed by an undefined sense of trouble, March stood, his hand upon the gate, almost decided to go up to the house and inquire if aught were amiss. While he cast about in his mind for some form of words that might account for his intrusion, Mrs. Wayt’s figure came forward, and offered, with one hand, a glass of water to her sister. In the other she held a paper. Without taking her fingers from the typewriter Hetty raised her head, Mrs. Wayt put the glass to her lips, and, while she drank, dictated a sentence from the sheet in her hand. In the breezeless hush of the July night a clause was audible to the spectator. “Who has not heard the story of the drummer boy of Gettysburg?” “Click-click-clack! Click-click-clack!” recommenced the noisy rattle. While Hetty’s fingers flew her sister fanned her gently, but the eyes of one were riveted to the machine, those of the other never left the paper in her hand. March went back to his orchard camp, Thor at his heels. It was close cloudy; the purple play of lightning was whitening and concentrating in less frequent lines and lances. When these came, it could be seen that thunderheads were lifting themselves in the west. But the night remained windless, and the iterative click still teased the ears of the watcher. It was an odd vigil, even for an anxious lover, to lie there, gazing into the black abysses of shade, seeing naught except by livid flashes that left deeper blackness, and knowing whose vital forces were expended in the unseasonable toil. What could it mean? Did the overladen girl add copying for pay to the list of her labors? And could the sister who seemed to love her, aid and abet the suicidal work? Where was Mr. Wayt? The play of questions took the measure and beat of the type keys, until he was wild with speculation and hearkening. At half-past two the rattle ceased suddenly. Almost beside himself with nervous restlessness, he sprang up and looked through the gap in the boughs. The light went out, and, at the same instant, the delayed storm burst in roar and rain. CHAPTER VI. SUNDAY, July 5, dawned gloriously, clear and fresh after the thunder-storm, to which Fairhill people still refer pridefully, as the most violent known in thirty years. The gunpowder and Chinese paper taint was swept and washed out of the world. Mrs. Wayt, holding Fanny by the hand, and followed decorously by the twin boys in their Sunday clothes and churchward-bound behavior, emerged from her gate as the Gilchrists gained it. In the white light of the forenoon, the eyes of the pastor’s wife showed faded; groups of fine wrinkles were at the corners, and bistre shadows under them. Yet she announced vivaciously that all were in their usual health at home, except for Mr. Wayt’s headache, and nobody had been hurt yesterday.