Mr. Brand preached a stormy sermon full of patriotism and breathing forth fire and slaughter against everything north of the line drawn by Mason and Dixon. His warlike denunciations, his tremendous philippics, echoed to the roof of the church which had heard Cromwell denounced by vicars who had been driven from England by the Roundheads, and who exhorted their congregations to be true to their royal masters. It had heard a royal master denounced at the time of the Revolution, and now heard the union of the States condemned as roundly. The prayer for the President of the Confederate States was followed with a sort of fierce piety by the congregation. Meanwhile, the fair day grew suddenly dark. The wind rose and the great limbs of the willow trees dashed against the church windows, while the landscape was flooded in a moment with a downpour of April rain. Loud thunder was heard and the dark church was illuminated by frightful flashes of lightning, which seemed to enter every window at once. As the prayer for the President of the Confederate States was concluded, a tremendous peal of thunder, long and reverberating, crashed overhead. It made the walls of the old church shake and the diamond window panes rattle as if in an earthquake. The clergyman stopped short--nothing could be heard above the roar of the thunder, and the faces of the congregation could only be seen by the pale glare of the lightning. It produced a sort of shock among them, but in a few minutes the storm passed away as rapidly as it had come. The rain, however, still descended in sheets and wrapped the green landscape in a white mist like a muslin veil. When services were finally concluded it was impossible to go out in the downpour. The people, however, were determined not to lose their weekly reunion, especially as there was so much to discuss, and gossiped cheerfully in the aisles. The clergyman, having doffed his vestments, came out into the body of the church in search of his Dulcinea del Tovoso. Mrs. Charteris met him with her hands outstretched and a malicious light in her dark eyes. “What an inspiring sermon you preached!” she said, “it’s enough to make women fight, much more men, and how sad it is to think we are to lose you!” Mr. Brand looked slightly disconcerted. “I have no intention whatever,” he said, “of leaving Petworth Church. I feel it my duty to remain with my flock. My sheep must be shepherded.” “Oh!” cried Mrs. Charteris, “I feel sure that your virtuous resolution can’t withstand your martial ardor.” “I am a man of peace----” began Mr. Brand.