"I am an old man," said Mr. Yocomb, "but I never saw anything so grand as this before."

"Mother, mother," said little Zillah, "I'm afraid. Please take me upstairs and put me to bed." And the mother, to whom the scene in the heavens was a glorious manifestation of the God she loved rather than feared, denied herself of what was almost like a vision, for the sake of the child.

"It's awful," said Adah; "I won't look at it any longer. I don't see why we can't have nice quiet showers that one can go to sleep in;" and she disappeared within the house. Reuben sat down on the piazza, in his quiet, undemonstrative way. Miss Warren came down and stood close to Mr. Yocomb's side, as if she half unconsciously sought the good man's protection.

Incessant lightnings played from some portion of the cloud, zigzagging in fiery links and forkings, while, at brief intervals, there would be an exceptionally vivid flash, followed more and more closely by heavier and still heavier explosions. But not a leaf stirred around us: the chirp of a cricket was sharply distinct in the stillness. The stars shone serenely over our heads, and the moon, rising to the left out of the line of the smoke and fire, was assuming her silvery brightness, and at the same time rendering the burning mountain more lurid from contrast.

"Herbert, Herbert, now I know how brave you were," I heard Miss Warren exclaim, in a low, awed tone.

I saw by the frequent flashes that she was very pale, and that she was trembling.

"You mean your brother," I said gently.

With her eyes fixed on the threatening and advancing cloud as if fascinated by it, she continued in the same tone, that was full of indescribable dread: "Yes, yes, I never realized it so fully before, and yet I have lain awake whole nights, going, by an awful necessity, over every scene of that terrible day. He stood in his place in the line of battle on an open plain, and he watched battery after battery come down from the heights above and open fire. He stood there till he was slain, looking steadily at death. This cloud that is coming makes me understand the more awful storm of war that he faced. Oh, I wish this hadn't happened," and there was almost agony in her tone. "I'm not brave as he was, and every nearer peal of thunder shakes my very soul."

Mr. Yocomb put his hand tenderly on her shoulder as he said:

"My dear, foolish little child—as if thy Father in heaven would hurt thee!"

"Miss Warren," I said earnestly, "I have too little of Mr. and Mrs. Yocomb's faith; but it seems impossible that anything coming from heaven could harm you."

She drew closer to Mr. Yocomb's side, but still looked at the cloud with the same wide-eyed dread, as if spellbound by it.

"To me," she resumed in her former tone, that only became more hurried and full of fear as the tempest approached, "these awful storms are no part of heaven. They are wholly of earth, and seem the counterparts of those wild outbreaks of human passion from which I and so many poor women in the past have suffered;" and a low sob shook her frame. "I wish I had more of good Mr. Yocomb's spirit; for this appalling cloud seems to me the very incarnation of evil. Why does God permit such things?"

With a front as calm and serene as that of any ancient prophet could have been, Mr. Yocomb began repeating the sublime words, "The voice of Thy thunder was in the heavens; the lightnings lightened the world."

"Oh, no, no!" cried the trembling girl, "the God I worship is not in the storm nor in the fire, but in the still small voice of love. You may think me very weak to be so moved, but truly I cannot help it. My whole nature shrinks from this." I took her hand as I said warmly, "I do understand you, Miss Warren. Unconsciously you have fully explained your mood and feeling. It's in truth your nature, your sensitive, delicate organism, that shrinks from this wild tumult that is coming. In the higher moral tests of courage, when the strongest man might falter and fail, you would be quietly steadfast."

She gave my hand a quick, strong pressure, and then withdrew it as she said, "I hope you are right; you interpret me so generously that I hope I may some day prove you right."

"I need no proof. I saw your very self in the garden."

"How strange—how strange it all is!" she resumed, with a manner that betokened a strong nervous excitability. "Can this be the same world— these the same scenes that were so full of peace and beauty an hour ago? How tremendous is the contrast between the serene, lovely June day and evening just passed and this coming tempest, whose sullen roar I already hear with increasing dread! Mr. Morton, you said in jest that this was a day of fate. Why did you use the expression? It haunts me, oppresses me. Possibly it is. I rarely give way to presentiments, but I dread the coming of this storm inexpressibly. Oh!" and she trembled violently as a heavier peal than we had yet heard filled the wide valley with awful echoes.

"Not even a sparrow shall fall to the ground without your Father. We are safe, my child. God will shield thee more lovingly than I;" and he drew her closer to him.

"I know what you say is true, and yet I cannot control this mortal fear and weakness."

"No, Miss Warren, you cannot," I said; "therefore do not blame yourself. You tremble as these trees and shrubs will be agitated in a few moments, because you cannot help it."

"You are not so moved."

"No, nor will that post be moved," I replied, with a reckless laugh. "I must admit that I am very much excited, however, for the air is full of electricity. I can't help thinking of the little robins in a home open to the sky."

Her only answer was a low sob, but not for a moment did she take her wide, terror-stricken gaze from the cloud whose slow, deliberate advance was more terrible than gusty violence would have been.

The phenomena had now become so awful that we did not speak again for some moments. The great inky mass was extending toward the eastward, and approaching the fire burning on the mountain-top, and the moon rising above and to the left of it; and from beneath its black shadow came a heavy, muffled sound that every moment deepened and intensified.

Suddenly, as if shaken by a giant's hands, the tree-tops above us swayed to and fro; then the shrubbery along the paths seemed full of wild terror and writhed in every direction.

Hitherto the moon had shone on the cloud with as serene a face as that with which Mr. Yocomb had watched its approach, but now a scud of vapor swept like a sudden pallor across her disk, giving one the odd impression that she had just realized her peril, and then an abyss of darkness swallowed her up. For a few moments longer the fire burned on, and then the cloud with its torrents settled down upon it, and the luridly luminous point became opaque.

The night now alternated between utter darkness and a glare in which every leaf and even the color of the tossing roses were distinct.

After the first swirl of wind passed, there fell upon nature round us a silence that was like breathless expectation, or the cowering from a blow that cannot be averted, and through the stillness the sound of the advancing tempest came with awful distinctness, while far back among the mountains the deep reverberations scarcely ceased a moment.

Broken masses of vapor, the wild skirmish line of the storm, passed over our heads, blotting out the stars. The trees and shrubbery were bending helplessly to the gust, and Miss Warren could scarcely stand before its violence. The great elm swayed its drooping branches over the house as if to protect it. The war and whirl of the tempest was all about us, the coming rain reminded one of the resounding footsteps of an innumerable host, and great drops fell here and there like scattering shots.

"Come in, my child," said Mr. Yocomb; "the storm will soon be passed, and thee and the robins shall yet have quiet sleep to-night. I've seen many such wild times among the mountains, and nothing worse than clearer skies and better grain followed. You will hear the robins singing—"

A blinding flash of lightning, followed by such a crash as I hope I may never hear again, prevented further reassuring words, and he had to half support her into the house.

I had never been in a battle, but I know that the excitement which mastered me must have been akin to the grand exaltation of conflict, wherein a man thinks and acts by moments as if they were hours and years. Well he may, when any moment, may end his life. But the thought of death scarcely entered my mind. I had no presentiment of harm to myself, but feared that the dwelling or outbuildings might be struck.

Almost with the swiftness of lightning came the calculation:

"Estimating distance and time, the next discharge of electricity will be directly over the house. If there's cause, which God forbid, may I have the nerve and power to serve those who have been so kind!"

As I thought, I ran to an open space which commanded a view of the farmhouse. Scarcely had I reached it before my eyes were blinded for a second by what seemed a ball of intense burning light shot vertically into the devoted home.

"O God!" I gasped, "it is the day of fate." For a moment I seemed paralyzed, but the igniting roof beside the chimney roused me at once.

"Reuben!" I shouted.

A flash of lightning revealed him still seated quietly on the piazza, as if he had heard nothing. I rushed forward, and shook him by the shoulder.

"Come, be a man; help me. Quick!" and I half dragged him to a neighboring cherry-tree, against which I had noticed that a ladder rested.

By this time he seemed to recover his senses, and in less than a moment we had the ladder against the house. Within another moment he had brought me a pail of water from the kitchen.

"Have two more pails ready," I cried, mounting the low, sloping roof.

The water I carried, and rain, which now began to fall in torrents, extinguished the external fire, but I justly feared that the woodwork had been ignited within. Hastening back at perilous speed, I said to Reuben, who stood ready: "Take one of the pails and lead the way to the attic and the rooms upstairs."

The house was strangely and awfully quiet as we rushed in.

I paused a second at the parlor door. Miss Warren lay motionless upon the floor, and Mr. Yocomb sat quietly in his great armchair.

A sickening fear almost overwhelmed me, but I exclaimed loudly, "Mr. Yocomb, rouse yourself; I smell fire; the house is burning!"

He did not move nor answer, and I followed Reuben, who was half-way up the stairs. It took but a few seconds to reach the large, old- fashioned garret, which already was filling with smoke.

"Lead the way to the chimney," I shouted to Reuben in my terrible excitement. "Do not waste a drop of water. Let me put it on when I find just where the fire is."

Through the smoke I now saw a lurid point. A stride brought me thither, and I threw part of the water in my pail up against it. The hissing and sputtering proved that we had hit on the right spot, while the torrents falling on the roof so dampened the shingles that further ignition from without was impossible.

"We must go down a moment to breathe," I gasped, for the smoke was choking us.

As we reached the story in which were the sleeping apartments, I cried:

"Great God! Why don't some of the family move or speak?"

Hitherto Reuben had realized only the peril of his home; but now he rushed into his mother's room, calling her in a tone that I shall never forget.

A second later he uttered my name in a strange, awed tone, and I entered hesitatingly. Little Zillah apparently lay sleeping in her crib, and Mrs. Yocomb was kneeling by her bedside.

"Mother!" said Reuben, in a loud whisper.

She did not answer.

He knelt beside her, put his arm around her, and said, close to her ear, "Mother! why don't you speak to me?" She made no response, and I saw that she leaned so heavily forward on the bed as to indicate utter unconsciousness.

The boy sprang up, and gazed at me with wild questioning in his eyes.

"Reuben!" I said quickly, "she's only stunned by the lightning. Will you prove yourself a man, and help me in what must be done? Life may depend upon it."

"Yes," eagerly.

"Then help me lift your mother on the bed; strong and gentle, now— that's it."

I put my hand over her heart.

"She is not dead," I exclaimed joyously; "only stunned. Let us go to the attic again, for we must keep shelter this wild night."

We found that the smoke had perceptibly lessened; I dashed the other pail of water on the spot that had been burning, then found that I could place my hand on it. We had been just in time, for there was light woodwork near that communicated with the floor, and the attic was full of dry lumber, and herbs hanging here and there, that would have burned like tinder. Had these been burning we could not have entered the garret, and as it was we breathed with great difficulty. The roof still resounded to the fall of such torrents that I felt that the dwelling was safe, unless it had become ignited in the lower stories, and it was obviously our next duty to see whether this was the case.

"Reuben," I said, "fill the pails once more, while I look through the house and see if there's fire anywhere else. It's clear that all who were in the house were stunned—even you were, slightly, on the piazza—so don't give way to fright on their account. If you do as I bid, you may do much to save their lives; but we must first make sure the house is safe. If it isn't, we must carry them all out at once."

He comprehended me, and went for the water instantly.

I again looked into Mrs. Yocomb's room. It was impregnated with a strong sulphurous odor, and I now saw that there was a discolored line down the wall adjoining the chimney, and that little Zillah's crib stood nearer the scorching line of fire than Mrs. Yocomb had been. But the child looked quiet and peaceful, and I hastened away.

My own room was dark and safe. I opened the door of Miss Warren's room, and a flash of lightning, followed by complete darkness, showed that nothing was amiss.

I then opened another door, and first thought the apartment on fire, it was so bright; but instantly saw that two lamps were burning, and that Adah lay dressed upon the bed, with her face turned toward them. By this common device she had sought to deaden the vivid lightning. Her face was white as the pillow on which it rested; her eyes were closed, and from her appearance she might have been sleeping or dead. Even though almost overwhelmed with dread, I could not help noting her wonderful beauty. In my abnormal and excited condition of mind, however, it seemed a natural and essential part of the strange, unexpected experiences of the day.

I was now convinced that there was no fire in the second story, and the thought of Miss Warren drew me instantly away. I already had a strange sense of self-reproach that I had not gone to her at once, feeling as if I had discarded the first and most sacred claim. I met Reuben on the stairway, and told him that the second story was safe, and asked him to look through the first story and cellar, and then to go for a physician as fast as the fleetest horse could carry him.



CHAPTER XIII

THE LIGHTNING AND A SUBTLER FLAME

On entering the parlor, I found Mr. Yocomb standing up and looking around in a dazed manner. He did not seem to know me, and in my deep anxiety I did not heed him. Kneeling beside Miss Warren, I found that her pulse was very feeble. I lifted her gently upon the sofa, and threw open a window, so that the damp, gusty wind, full of spray from the rain, might blow in upon her.

Mr. Yocomb laid his hand heavily on my shoulder, and asked, in a thick voice, "What does it all mean?"

I saw that he was deathly pale, and that he tottered. Taking his arm, I supported him to a lounge in the hall, and said, "Mr. Yocomb, you were taken ill. You must lie down quietly till the physician comes."

He seemed so confused and unable to think that he accepted my explanation. Indeed, he soon became so ill from the effects of the shock that he could not rise.

Again I knelt at Miss Warren's side, and began chafing her hands; but the cool wind and spray did the most to revive her. She opened her eyes, looked at me fixedly a few moments, and then tried to rise.

"Please keep quiet," I said, "till I bring you some brandy;" and I hastened to my room, tore open my valise, and was soon moistening her lips from a small flask. After swallowing a little she regained self- possession rapidly.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I fear you swooned."

She passed her hand over her brow, and looked around as if in search, of some one, then said, "Where is Mrs. Yocomb?"

"She is in her room with Zillah."

"Please let me go to her;" and she again essayed to rise.

"Miss Warren," I said gently, "I have no right to ask a favor of you, but I will thank you very much if you will just remain quietly on this sofa till you are better. You remember we had a frightful storm. I never knew such heavy thunder."

"Ah! there it is again," she said, shuddering, as a heavy peal rolled away to the north.

"Miss Warren, you said once to-day that you could trust me. You can. I assure you the storm is past; there is no more danger from it, but there is danger unless you do as I bid you. Remain quietly here till you have recovered from—from your nervous prostration. I happen to have some knowledge in a case of this kind, and I know that much depends on your being quiet for an hour or more. You need not be alarmed if you do as I bid you. I will see to it that some one is within call all the time;" and I tried to speak cheerfully and decisively.

She smiled as she said, "Since you have assumed the role of doctor, I'll obey, for I know how arbitrary the profession is."

Then she again reclined wearily on the sofa, and I went out, closing the door.

I found Reuben beside his father, who certainly needed care, for the terrible nausea which attends recovery from a severe shock from electricity had set in.

"Reuben," I urged, "do go for the doctor; I'll do everything for your father that I can, but we must have a good physician at once. Go in your buggy as fast as you can drive in the dark—can't you take a lantern?—and bring the doctor with you. First tell him what has happened, so that he can bring the proper remedies. Be a man, Reuben; much depends on you to-night."

Within five minutes I heard the swift feet of Dapple splash out upon the road. The night was growing still and close, and the gusts occurred at longer intervals. The murky cloud had covered the sky, utterly obscuring the moonlight, and there was a steady and heavy fall of rain.

After Reuben had gone, a terrible sense of isolation and helplessness oppressed me. I remembered strange tales of lightning and its effects that I had heard. Would the mother and her two daughters survive? Was Mr. Yocomb seriously ill? But I found that the anxiety which tortured me most was in behalf of the one who gave the best promise of speedy recovery; and it was my chief hope that she would remain quietly where I had left her till the physician arrived. I had pretended to a far greater knowledge than I possessed, since in truth I had had very little experience in illness. If Miss Warren should leave the parlor, and thus learn that the farmhouse might become the scene of an awful tragedy, the effect upon her would probably be disastrous in the extreme.

These and like thoughts were coursing swiftly through my mind as I waited upon Mr. Yocomb, and sought to give him relief.

"Ice!" he gasped; "it's in cellar."

I snatched up the candle that Reuben had left burning on the hall- table, and went for it. The place was strange, and I was not as quick and deft as many others would have been, and so was absent some moments.

Great was my surprise and consternation when I returned, for Miss Warren stood beside Mr. Yocomb, holding his head.

"Why are you here?" I asked, and my tone and manner betokened deep trouble.

"I'm better," she said, quietly and firmly.

"Miss Warren," I remonstrated, "I won't answer for the consequences if you don't go back to the parlor and remain there till the doctor comes. I know what I'm about."

"You don't look as if master of the situation. You are haggard—you seem half desperate—"

"I'm anxious about you, and if—"

"Mr. Morton, you are far more anxious about others. I've had time to think. A swoon is not such a desperate affair. You guessed rightly—a thunderstorm prostrates me, but as it passes I am myself again."

After aiding Mr. Yocomb to recline feebly on the lounge, she came to the table where I was breaking the ice, and said, in a low tone:

"Something very serious has happened."

I could not look at her. I dared not to speak even, for I was oppressed with the dread of a worse tragedy. With her morbid fear of lightning she might almost lose her reason if now, in her weak, unnerved condition, she saw its effect on Mrs. Yocomb and Adah.

"Mother," moaned Mr. Yocomb; "why don't mother come?"

"She's with Zillah upstairs," I faltered. "Zillah's ill!"

"Then why does not Adah come to her father?" Miss Warren questioned, looking at me keenly.

I felt that disguise was useless.

"Mr. Morton, your hand so trembles that you can scarcely break the ice. Something dreadful has happened—there's the smell of smoke and fire in the house. Tell me, tell me!" and she laid her hand appealingly on my arm.

"Oh, Miss Warren," I groaned, "let me shield you. If further harm should come to you to-night—"

"Further harm will come unless you treat me as a woman, not as a child," she said firmly. "I know you mean it kindly, and no doubt I have seemed weak enough to warrant any amount of shielding."

At this moment there came a peal of thunder from the passing storm, and she sank shudderingly into a chair. As it passed she sprang up and said:

"I can't help that, but I can and will help you. I understand it all. The house has been struck, and Zillah, Adah, and Mr. Yocomb have been hurt. Let me feed Mr. Yocomb with the ice. Are you sure he should have ice? I would give him brandy first if I had my way, but you said you knew—"

"Miss Warren, I don't know—I'm in mortal terror in behalf of the family; but my chief dread has been that you would come to know the truth, and now I can't keep it from you. If you can be brave and strong enough to help me in this emergency, I will honor you and thank you every day of my life."

"Mother! mother! why doesn't mother come?" Mr. Yocomb called.

Miss Warren gave me a swift glance that was as reassuring as sunlight, and then went quietly into the parlor. A moment later she was giving Mr. Yocomb brandy and water, and quieting him with low, gentle words.

"You remember, Mr. Yocomb," she said, "that Zillah was greatly frightened by the storm. You would not have the mother leave the child just yet. Mr. Morton, will you go upstairs and see if I can be of any assistance? I will join you there as soon as I have made Mr. Yocomb a little more comfortable," and she went to the parlor and brought out another pillow, and then threw open the hall-door in order that her patient might have more air, for he respired slowly and laboriously. Her words seemed to quiet him, and he gave himself into her hands. I looked at her wonderingly for a moment, then said, in a low tone:

"You are indeed a woman and a brave one. I recognize my superior officer, and resign command at once."

She shook her head as she gave me a glimmer of a smile, but urged, in a whisper, "Hasten, we must not lose a moment."

I swiftly mounted the stairs, relieved of my chief anxiety.

Through the open door I saw Adah's fair white face. She had not stirred. I now ventured in and spoke to her, but she was utterly unconscious. Taking her hand I was overjoyed to find a feeble pulse.

"It may all yet be well. God grant it," I muttered.

"He will," said Miss Warren, who had joined me almost immediately; "this is not a day of fate, I trust;" and she began moistening Adah's lips with brandy, and trying to cause her to swallow a little, while I chafed her pretty hands and rubbed brandy on her wrists.

"It seems to me as if an age, crowded with events, had elapsed since I started on my aimless walk this morning," I said, half in soliloquy.

"That you were directed hither will be cause for lasting gratitude. Was not the house on fire?"

"Yes, but Reuben was invaluable. He was out on the piazza, and so was not hurt."

"Was Mrs. Yocomb hurt?" she asked, looking at me in wild alarm.

"Please do not fail me," I entreated; "you have been so brave thus far. Mrs. Yocomb will soon revive, I think. You were unconscious at first."

She now realized the truth that Mrs. Yocomb was not caring for Zillah, and hastened to their room, impelled by an overmastering affection for the woman who had treated her with motherly kindness.

I followed her, and assured her that her friend was living. It needed but a moment to see that this was true, but little Zillah scarcely gave any sign of life. Both were unconscious.

The young girl now looked at me as if almost overwhelmed, and said, in a low shuddering tone, "This is awful—far worse than I feared; I do wish the doctor was here."

"He must be here soon. I know you won't give way. In great emergencies a true woman is great. You may save—"

A thunder-peal from the retreating storm drowned my words. She grew white, and would have fallen had I not caught her and supported her to a chair.

"Give me—a few moments," she gasped, "and I'll be—myself again. This shock is awful. Why, we would all have burned up—had you not put the fire out," and her eyes dilated with horror.

"We have no time for words," I said, brusquely. "Here, take this brandy, and then let us do everything in our power to save life. I scarcely know what to do, but something must be done. If we can only do the right thing, all may yet be well."

In a moment the weakness passed, and she was her brave, quiet self once more.

"I won't fail you again," she said resolutely, as she tried to force a little brandy between Mrs. Yocomb's pallid lips.

"You are a genuine woman," I replied heartily, as I chafed Mrs. Yocomb's wrists with the spirits; "I know how terrible the ordeal has been for you, and most young ladies would have contributed to the occasion nothing but hysterics."

"And you feared I would."

"I feared worse. You are morbidly timid in a thunder-storm, and I dreaded your learning what you now know beyond measure."

"You were indeed burdened," she said, looking at me with strong sympathy.

"No matter. If you can keep up and suffer no ill consequences from this affair, I believe that the rest will come through all right. After all, they are affected only physically, but you—"

"I have been a little weak-minded. I know it. But if it doesn't thunder any more I'll keep up. Ever since I was a child the sound of thunder paralyzed me. Thank God, Mrs. Yocomb is beginning to revive."

"I will leave her in your care, and see if I can do anything for Mr. Yocomb. I thus show that I trust you fully."

As I passed out I heard a faint voice call, "Mother!"

Going to the door of Adah's room I saw that she was conscious, and feebly trying to rise. As I entered she looked at me in utter bewilderment, then shrank with instinctive fear from the presence of a seeming intruder. I saw the impulse of her half-conscious mind, and called Miss Warren, who came at once, and her presence seemed reassuring.

"What's the matter?" she asked, with the same thick utterance that I had noted in Mr. Yocomb's voice. It seemed as if the organs of speech were partially paralyzed.

"You have been ill, my dear, but now you are much better. The doctor will be here soon," Miss Warren said soothingly.

She seemed to comprehend the words imperfectly, and turned her wondering eyes toward me.

"Oh, that the doctor would come!" I groaned. "Here you have two on your hands, and Mr. Yocomb is calling."

"Who's that?" asked Adah, feebly pointing to me.

"You remember Mr. Morton," Miss Warren said quietly, bathing the girl's face with cologne. "You brought him home from meeting this morning."

The girl's gaze was so fixed and peculiar that it held me a moment, and gave the odd impression of the strong curiosity of one waking up in a new world. Suddenly she closed her eyes and fell back faint and sick. At that moment, above the sound of the rain, I heard the quick splash of a horse's feet, and hastened down to greet the doctor.

In a few hasty words I added such explanation of the catastrophe as Reuben's partial account rendered necessary, and by the time I had finished we were at Mrs. Yocomb's door. Mr. Yocomb seemed sufficiently at rest to be left for a while.

"This is Miss Warren," I said. "She will be your invaluable assistant, but you must be careful of her, since she, too, has suffered very severely, and, I fear, is keeping up on the strength of her brave will, mainly."

The physician, fortunately, was a good one, and his manner gave us confidence from the start.

"I think I understand the affair sufficiently," he said; "and the best thing you can do for my patients, and for Miss Warren also, Mr. Morton, is to have some strong black coffee made as soon as possible. That will now prove an invaluable remedy, I think."

"I'll show you where the coffee is," Miss Warren added promptly. "Unfortunately—perhaps fortunately—Mrs. Yocomb let the woman who assisted her go away for the night. Had she been here she might have been another burden."

Even though I had but a moment or two in the room, I saw that the doctor was anxious about little Zillah.

As Miss Warren waited on me I said earnestly, "What a godsend you are!"

"No," she replied with a tone and glance that, to me, were sweeter and more welcome than all the June sunshine of that day. "I was here, and you were sent." Then her eyes grew full of dread, reminding me of the gaze she had bent on the storm before which she had cowered. "The house was on fire," she said; "we were all helpless—unconscious. You saved us. I begin to realize it all."

"Come, Miss Warren, you now are 'seeing double.' Here, Reuben," I said to the young fellow, who came dripping in from the barn. "I want to introduce you in a new light. Miss Warren doesn't half know you yet, and I wish her to realize that you are no longer a boy, but a brave, level-headed man, that even when stunned by lightning could do as much as I did."

"Now, Richard Morton, I didn't do half as much as thee did. How's mother?" and he spoke with a boy's ingenuousness.

"Doing well under the care of the doctor you brought," I said; "and if you will now help me make this dying fire burn up quickly, she will have you to thank more than any one else when well again."

"I'm going to thank you now," Miss Warren exclaimed, seizing both of his hands. "God bless you, Reuben! You don't realize what you have done for us all."

The young fellow looked surprised. "I only did what Richard Morton told me," he protested, "and that wasn't much."

"Well, there's a pair of you," she laughed. "The fire put itself out, and Dapple went after the doctor." Then, as if overwhelmed with gratitude, she clasped her hands and looked upward, as she said, in low, thrilling tones: "Thank God, oh thank God! what a tragedy we have escaped!"

"Yes," I said, "it might have been a day of fate indeed. Life would have been an unendurable burden if what you feared had happened. What's more, I would have lost my faith in God had such a home and its inmates been destroyed. The thought of it makes me sick," and I sank into a chair.

"We must not think of it," she cried earnestly, "for there's much to be done still. There, I've helped you all I can here. When the coffee's ready, call me, and I'll come for it. Get on dry clothes as soon as you can, Reuben, for you can be of great service to us upstairs. I'm astonished at you, Mr. Morton, you haven't any nerve at all—you who have dealt in conflagrations, murders, wars, pestilences, earthquakes, writing them up in the most harrowing, blood-curdling style; you have absolutely turned white and faint because the inmates of a farmhouse were shocked. I won't believe you are an editor at all unless you call me within five minutes."

Whether because her piquant words formed just the spur I needed, or because she had a mysterious power over me which made her will mine, I threw off the depression into which I had reacted from my overwhelming excitement and anxiety, and soon had my slowly kindling fire burning furiously, dimly conscious in the meantime that deep in my heart another and subtler flame was kindling also.



CHAPTER XIV

KINDLING A SPARK OF LIFE

I soon had coffee made that was as black as the night without. Instead of calling Miss Warren, I took a tray from the dining-room, and carried it with several cups upstairs.

"Bring it here!" called the doctor.

I entered Mrs. Yocomb's room, and found that she had quite fully revived, and that Reuben had supported his father thither also. He reclined on the lounge, and his usually ruddy face was very pale. Both he and his wife appeared almost helpless; but the doctor had succeeded in arresting, by the use of ice, the distressing nausea that had followed consciousness. They looked at me in a bewildered manner as I entered, and could not seem to account for my presence at once. Nor did they, apparently, try to do so long, for their eyes turned toward little Zillah with a deeply troubled and perplexed expression, as if they were beginning to realize that the child was very ill, and that events of an extraordinary character had happened.

"Let me taste the coffee," said the doctor. "Ah! that's the kind— black and strong. See how it will bring them around," and he made Mr. and Mrs. Yocomb each swallow a cup of it.

"Miss Warren," he called, "give some of this to Miss Adah, if she is quiet enough to take it. I cannot leave the child."

Miss Warren came at once. Her face was clouded and anxious, and she looked with eager solicitude toward the still unconscious Zillah, whose hands Reuben was chafing.

"I think Miss Adah will soon be better," she replied to the doctor's inquiring glance, and she went back to her charge.

"Take some yourself," said the physician to me, in a low tone. "I fear we are going to have a serious time with the little girl."

"You do not realize," I urged, "that Miss Warren needs keeping up almost as truly as any of them."

"You'll have to take care of her then," said the doctor hastily; "she seems to be doing well herself, and doing well for others. Take her some coffee, and say that I said she must drink it."

I knocked at Adah's door and called, "Miss Warren, the doctor says you must drink this coffee."

"In a few moments," she answered, and after a little time she came out.

"Where's your cup?" she asked. "Have you taken any?"

"Not yet, of course."

"Why of course? If you want me to drink this you must get some at once."

"There may not be enough. I don't know how much the doctor may need."

"Then get a cup, and I'll give you half of this."

"Never," I answered promptly. "Do as the doctor bade you."

She went swiftly to Mrs. Yocomb's room and filled another cup.

"I pledge you my word I won't touch a drop till you have taken this. You don't realize what you have been through, Mr. Morton. Your hand so trembled that you could scarcely carry the cup; you are all unnerved. Come," she added gravely, "you must be in a condition to help, for I fear Zillah is in a critical condition."

"I'm not going to break down," I said resolutely. "Give it to Reuben. Poor fellow, he was very wet."

She looked at my clothes, and then exclaimed:

"Why, Mr. Morton, don't you know you are wet through and through?"

"Am I?" and I looked down at my soaked garments.

"I don't believe you have a dry thread on you."

"I've been too excited to think of it. Of course, I got wet on the roof; but what's a summer shower! Your coffee's getting cold."

"So is yours."

"You have the doctor's orders."

"I would be glad if my wishes weighed a little with you," she said, appealingly.

"There, Miss Warren, if you put it that way I'd drink gall and vinegar," and I gulped down the coffee.

She vanished into Adah's room, saying, "You must take my word for it that I drink mine. I shall sip it while waiting on my patient."

Having insisted on Reuben's taking some also, I returned to the kitchen and made a new supply. Mr. and Mrs. Yocomb's extreme prostration, both mental and physical, perplexed me. Their idolized child was still unconscious, and yet they could only look on in wondering and perplexed anxiety. I afterward learned that a partial paralysis of every faculty, especially of memory, was a common effect of a severe shock of electricity. It was now evident that Miss Warren, from some obscure cause, escaped harm from lightning. The words I had employed to reassure her turned out to be true—she had merely swooned—and thus, on recovery, had full possession of all her faculties.

"I would be glad if my wishes weighed a little with you," she had said. In wonder at myself, I asked, "What weighs more with me? By what right is this maiden, whom I have met but to-day, taking such absolute control of my being? Am I overwrought, morbid, fanciful, deluded by an excited imagination into beliefs and moods that will vanish in the clear sunlight and clearer light of reason? or has the vivid lightning revealed with absolute distinctness the woman on whom I can lean in perfect trust, and yet must often sustain in her pathetic weakness? The world would say we are strangers; but my heart and soul and every fibre of my being appear to recognize a kinship so close that I feel we never can be strangers again. It is true the lightning fuses the hardest substances, making them one; however, I am beginning to think that my hitherto callous nature has been smitten by a diviner fire. If so, Heaven grant that I'm not the only one struck.

"Well, it's a queer world. When I broke down, last Friday night, and sat cowering before the future in my editorial sanctum, I little dreamed that on Sunday night I should be making coffee in a good old Quaker's kitchen, and, what is still more strange, making a divinity out of a New York music-teacher!"

A moment later I added, "That's a stupid way of putting it. I'm not making a divinity out of her at all. She is one, and I've had the wit to recognize the truth. Are her gentlemen friends all idiots that they have not—"

"What! talking to yourself, Mr. Morton? I fear the events of this day are turning your head." And Miss Warren entered.

"Speak of an angel—you know the saying." "Indeed! The only word I heard as I entered was 'idiot.'"

"Pardon me, you overheard the word 'idiots,' so can gather nothing from that."

"No, your mutterings are dark indeed. I see no light or sense in them; but the doctor came to Adah's door and asked me for more coffee."

"How is Miss Adah?"

"Doing nicely. She'll sleep soon, I think."

"I do hope little Zillah is recovering."

"Yes, Reuben put a radiant face within the door, a few minutes since, and said Zillah was 'coming to,' as he expressed it. Adah is doing so well that I feel assured about the others. Now that she is becoming quiet, I think I can leave her and help with Zillah."

"And you're not exhausting yourself?"

"I've not yet reached the stage of muttering delirium. Mr. Morton, will you permit me to suggest that you go to your room and put on dry clothes. You are not fit to be seen. Moreover, there is a mark athwart your nose that gives to your face a sinister aspect, not becoming in one whose deeds of darkness this night will bear the light of all coming time. It might be appropriate in a printing-office; but I don't intend to have little Zillah frightened. Oh, I'm so glad and grateful that we have all escaped! There, that will do; give me the tray."

"Beg your pardon: I shall carry it up myself. What on earth would I have done without you in this emergency?"

"Come, Mr. Morton, I'm not used to being disobeyed. Yes, you did look as helpless as only a man can look when there's illness; and there's no telling what awful remedies you might have administered before the doctor came. I think I shall take the credit of saving all our lives, since you and Reuben won't."

She pushed open the door of Mrs. Yocomb's room, and her face changed instantly.

Little Zillah lay on the bed and was still unconscious. Mrs. Yocomb had been moved into an armchair, and every moment comprehension of the truth grew clearer, and her motherly solicitude was intensified.

Reuben evidently was frightened, and the doctor's brow was knitted into a frown of perplexity.

"We thought she was coming to," said Reuben to Miss Warren, "but she's gone back worse than ever."

"Mr. Morton, I wish you to give to all a cup of that coffee and take some yourself," said the physician, in a quiet but authoritative voice. "Mr. Yocomb, you must not rise; you will be ill again, and I now need all the help I can get with this child. We must try artificial respiration, spraying the chest with cold water, and every possible means."

"Would to God that I could help thee!" cried Mrs. Yocomb.

"You can help by keeping absolutely quiet. Mr. Morton, in this emergency you must become as a brother or one of the family."

"I am one with them to-night," I said earnestly; "let me help you in any way."

"You three must rub her with flannel and spirits, while I lift her arms slowly up and down to try to induce respiration."

The poor limp little body—how sacred it seemed to me!

We worked and worked till the perspiration poured from our faces. Every expedient was tried, until the physician at last desisted and stood back for a moment in anxious thought.

Then, in a tone broken with anguish, Mr. Yocomb exclaimed:

"Would to God the bolt had fallen on my head, and not on this dear little lamb."

In bitter protest against it all I cried, "The bolt has fallen on your heart, Mr. Yocomb. How is it that God has thunderbolts for lambs?"

"Richard Morton, thee's unjust," began Mrs. Yocomb, in a voice that she tried to render quiet and resigned. "Who art thou to judge God? 'What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know—' Oh, my child, my child!" broke out her wailing cry, and motherhood triumphed.

Reuben was sobbing over his sister with all the abandon of boyish grief, but Miss Warren stood before the little form, apparently lifeless, with clasped hands and dilated eyes.

"I can't—I won't give her up," she exclaimed passionately, and darted from the room.

I followed wonderingly. She was already in the kitchen, and had found a large tub.

"Fill this with hot water," she said to me. "No! let me do it; I'll trust no one. Yes, you may carry it up, but please be careful. I'll bring some cold water to temper it. Doctor," she exclaimed, re- entering the room, "we must work till we know there is no chance. Yes, and after we know it. Is not hot water good?"

"Anything is good that will restore suspended circulation," he replied; "we'll try it. But wait a moment. I've employed a nice test, and if there's life I think this little expedient will reveal it." He held the child's hand, and I noted that a string had been tied around one of the small white fingers, and that he intently watched the part of the finger beyond the string. I comprehended the act at once, and recognized the truth that there would be little hope of life if this test failed. If there was any circulation at all the string would not prevent the blood flowing out through the artery, but it would prevent its return, and, therefore, if there was life a faint color would manifest itself in the finger. I bent over and held my breath in my eager scrutiny.

"The child's alive!" I exclaimed.

By a quick, impressive gesture the physician checked my manifestation of feeling and excitement as he said:

"Yes, she's alive, and that's about all. We'll try a plunge in the hot bath, and then friction and artificial respiration again."

We set to work once more with double zeal under the inspiration of Miss Warren's words and manner, but especially because assured that life still lingered. In less than a quarter of an hour there was a perceptible pulse. At last she was able to swallow a little stimulant, and the faint spark of life, of which we scarcely dared to speak lest our breath might extinguish it, began to kindle slowly. When at last she opened her eyes, Miss Warren turned hers heavenward with a fulness of gratitude that must have been sweet to the fatherly heart of God if the words be true, "Like as a father pitieth his children."

Mrs. Yocomb threw herself on her knees by the bedside, sobbing, "Thank God! thank God!"

Reuben was growing wild with joy, and the father, overwhelmed with emotion, was struggling to rise, when the doctor said, in low, decided tones:

"Hush! Nothing must be said or done to excite or surprise her. Mr. and Mrs. Yocomb, as you love your child, control yourselves. You, Mr. Morton, would seem strange to her, and, with Reuben, had better leave us now. Miss Warren will help me, and I think all will be well."

"Don't overtax Miss Warren," I urged, lingering anxiously at the door a moment.

She gave me a smiling, reassuring nod, as much as to say that she would take care of herself.

"God bless her!" I murmured, as I sought my room. "I believe she has saved the child."



CHAPTER XV

MY FATE

Having lighted the lamp in my room, I looked around it with a delicious sense of proprietorship. Its quaint, homely comfort was just to my taste, and now appeared doubly attractive. Chief of all, it was a portion of the home I had had some part in saving, and we instinctively love that which ministers to our self-complacency. An old house seems to gain a life and being of its own, and I almost imagined it conscious of gratitude that its existence had not been blotted out. Mrs. Yocomb's cordial invitation to come and stay when I could gave me at the time a glad sense that I had found a country refuge to which I could occasionally escape when in need of rest. I felt now, however, as if the old walls themselves would welcome me. As to the inmates of the home, I feared that their grateful sense of the services I was so fortunate as to render might make their boundless sense of obligation embarrassing to me. It would be their disposition to repay an ordinary favor tenfold, and they would always believe that Reuben and I had saved their lives, and the old home which no doubt had long been in their family.

"Well, I'll never complain of fortune again," I thought, "since I've been permitted to do for these people what I have;" and I threw myself down on the lounge, conscious of the warm, comfortable glow imparted by dry clothes and the strong coffee, still more conscious of an inner satisfaction that the threatening events of the night had ended just as I could have wished.

"Since it was to be, thank God I was here and was able to act for the best," I murmured. "The June sunshine and the lightning have thrown considerable light on my future. I said to Emily Warren, 'What could I have done without you in this emergency?' With still greater emphasis I feel like asking, What would life be without you? It seems absurd that one person should become essential to the life of another in a few brief hours. And yet, why absurd? Is it not rather in accord with the deepest and truest philosophy of life? Is the indissoluble union of two lives to result from long and careful calculations of the pros and cons? In true marriage it seems to me the soul should recognize its mate when meeting it."

It thus may be seen that I was no exception to that large class who accept or create a philosophy pleasing to it, and there is usually enough truth in any system to prevent its being wholly unreasonable.

I heard a step in the hall, and as I had left my door open so that at any sound I could spring up, I was so fortunate as to intercept the object of my thoughts. Her face was full of deep content, but very pale. To the eager questioning of my manner, she replied:

"The doctor says Zillah is doing as well as we could expect. Oh, I'm so glad!" "Miss Warren, you don't know how pale you are. When are you going to rest? I've been lying down, and my conscience troubled me as I thought of you still working."

"I never imagined that editors had such tender consciences," she said, with a low laugh, and she vanished into Adah's room.

I knew she wouldn't stay long, and remained at the end of the hall, looking out of the window. The lightning flashes had grown faint and distant, but they were almost incessant, and they revealed that the clouds were growing thin toward the west, while near the horizon a star glimmered distinctly.

"Miss Warren," I called, as she came out of Adah's room, "I've a good omen to show you. Do you see that star in the west? I think the morning will be cloudless?"

"But those flashes prove that the storm is causing fear and loss to other and distant homes."

"Not at all. It is, no doubt, causing 'better grain and clearer skies,' as Mr. Yocomb said. Such an experience as we have had to- night, while having its counterparts not infrequently, take the world over, is by no means common."

"Oh, I hope we may have no more heavy thunderstorms this summer. They are about the only drawback to this lovely season."

"You are perfectly safe so long as you remain here," I laughed; "you know the lightning never strikes twice in the same place."

"I hope to stay here, but for better reasons than that."

"So do I."

"I should think you would. You, certainly, are no longer homeless. Mr. and Mrs. Yocomb will adopt you in spite of yourself as soon as they realize it all. The string of the latch will always hang outside of the door for you, I can tell you; and a nice place it will be for a city man to come."

"And for a city woman, too. Mrs. Yocomb had adopted you before all this happened, and I don't believe she'll forget that you really saved little Zillah's life."

"The dear little thing!" she exclaimed, tears starting to her eyes. "How pathetic her little unconscious form was!"

"To me," I replied earnestly, "it was the most exquisite and sacred thing I ever saw. I don't wonder you felt as you did when you said, 'I can't—I won't give her up,' for it seemed at the moment almost as if my life depended on her life, so powerful was her hold on my sympathy. The doctor spoke truer than he thought, for it seems as if the lightning had fused me into this family, and my grief would have been almost as great as Reuben's had little Zillah not revived."

"I feel as if it would have broken my heart," and her tears fell fast. Dashing them away she said, "I cry as well as laugh too easily, and I'm often so provoked that I could shake myself. I must say that I think we're all becoming well acquainted for people who have met so recently."

"Oh, as for you," I replied, "I knew you well in some previous state of existence, and have just met you again."

"Mr. Morton," she said, turning on me brusquely, "I shall not be quite sure as to your entire sanity till you have had a long sleep. You have seemed a little out of your head on some points ever since our extended acquaintance began. You have appeared impressed or oppressed with the hallucination that this day—is it to-day or to-morrow?"

"It's to-day for a little while longer," I replied, looking at my watch.

"Well, then, that to-day was 'a day of fate,' and you made me nervous on the subject—"

"Then I'm as sane as you are."

"No, I hadn't any such nonsense in my mind till you suggested it, but having once entertained the idea it haunted me."

"Yes, and it haunts you still," I said, eagerly.

"What time is it, Mr. Morton?"

"It lacks but a few moments of midnight."

"No," she said, laughingly, "I don't believe anything more will happen to-day, and as soon as the old clock downstairs strikes twelve I think the light of reason will burn again in your disordered mind. Good- night."

Instead of going, however, she hesitated, looked at me earnestly a moment, then asked:

"You said you found me unconscious?"

"Yes."

"How did you revive me?"

"I carried you to the sofa under the window, which I opened. I then chafed your hands, but I think the wind and spray restored you."

"I don't remember fainting before; and—oh, well, this whole experience has been so strange that I can't realize it."

"Don't try to. If I'm a little out of my head, your soul will be out of your body if you don't take better care of yourself. You might as well be killed by lightning as over-fatigue. That doctor seems to think you are made of india-rubber."

"I've laughed to myself more than once at your injunctions to the doctor since Zillah revived. We've had such a narrow escape that I feel as if I ought not to laugh again for a year, but I can't help it. I won't thank you as I meant to—it might make you vain. Good-night," and she gave my hand a quick, strong pressure, and went swiftly back to Mrs. Yocomb's room.

Had my hand clasped only flesh and blood, bone and sinew? No, indeed. I felt that I had had within my grasp a gratitude and friendly regard that was so full and real that the warm-hearted, impulsive girl would not trust herself to express it in words. Her manner, however, was so frank and unconstrained that I knew her feelings to be only those of gratitude and friendly regard, seeing clearly that she entertained no such thoughts as had come unbidden to me.

In spite of my fatigue, the habit of my life and the strong coffee would have banished all thought of sleep for hours to come, if there had been no other cause, but the touch of a little hand had put more glad awakening life within me than all the stimulants of the world.

I went downstairs and looked through the old house to see that all was right, with as much solicitude as if it were indeed my own home. Excepting the disorder I had caused in the kitchen and hall, it had the midnight aspect of quiet and order that might have existed for a century.

"I would not be afraid of the ghosts that came back to this home," I muttered. "Indeed, I would like to see Mr. and Mrs. Yocomb's ancestors; and, now I think of it, some one of them should wear a jaunty, worldly hat to account for Adah. By Jove! but she was beautiful as she lay there, with her perfect physical life suspended instantaneously. If the lightning would only create a woman within the exquisite casket, the result would well repay what we have passed through. Her mother would say, as I suppose, that another and subtler fire from heaven were needed for such a task."

As I came out into the hall the great clock began to strike, in the slow, dignified manner befitting its age—

"One, two, three—twelve."

The day of fate had passed. I knew Emily Warren was laughing at me softly to herself as she and the physician watched with the patients in Mrs. Yocomb's room.

I was in no mood to laugh, for every moment the truth was growing clearer that I had met my fate.

I looked into the parlor, in which a lamp was burning, and conjured up the scene I had witnessed there. I saw a fair young face, with eyes turned heavenward, and heard again the words, "My faith looks up to Thee."

Their faith had been sorely tried. The burning bolt from heaven seemed a strange response to that faith; the crashing thunder a wild, harsh echo to the girl's sweet, reverent tones.

"Is it all chance?" I queried, "or all inexorable law? Who or what is the author of the events of this night?" As if in answer, Mrs. Yocomb's text came into my mind: "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."

"Well," I muttered, "perhaps there is as much reason in their philosophy as in any other. Somebody ought to be in charge of all this complex life and being."

I went out on the piazza. The rain was still falling, but softly and lightly. A freshening breeze was driving the thin, lingering clouds before it, and star after star looked out, as if lights were being kindled in the western sky. The moon was still hidden, but the vapor was not dense enough to greatly obscure her rays. In the partial light the valley seemed wider, the mountains higher, and everything more beautiful, in contrast with the black tempest that had so recently filled the scene.

I sat down on the piazza to watch with those who were watching with the child. I made up my mind that I certainly should not retire until the physician departed; and in my present mood I felt that my midsummer night's dream would be to me more interesting than that of Will Shakespeare. Hour after hour passed almost unnoted. The night became serene and beautiful. The moon, like a confident beauty, at last threw aside her veil of clouds, and smiled as if assured of welcome. Raindrops gemmed every leaf; and when the breeze increased, myriads of them sparkled momentarily through the silver light. As morning approached the air grew so sweet that I recognized the truth that the new flowers of a new day were opening, and that I was inhaling their virgin perfume.

I rose and went softly to the ivy-covered gateway of the old garden, and the place seemed transfigured in the white moonlight. Even the kitchen vegetables lost their homely, prosaic aspect. I stole to the lilac-bush, and peered at the home that had been roofless through all the wild storm. My approach had been so quiet that the little brown mother sat undisturbed, with her head under her wing; but the paternal robin, from an adjacent spray, regarded me with unfeigned surprise and alarm. He uttered a note of protest, and the mother-bird instantly raised her head and fixed on me her round, startled eyes. I stole away hastily, smiling to myself as I said:

"Both families will survive unharmed, and both nests are safe."

I went to the spot where I had stood with Emily Warren at the time I had half-jestingly, half-earnestly indulged my fancy to reproduce a bit of Eden-like frankness. Under the influence of the hour and my mood I was able to conjure up the maiden's form almost as if she were a real presence. I knew her far better now. With her I had passed through an ordeal that would test severely the best and strongest. She had been singularly strong and very weak; but the weakness had left no stain on her crystal truth, and her strength had been of the best and most womanly kind. As in the twilight, so in the white moonlight, she again made perfect harmony in the transfigured garden.

"There is but one woman in the world for me," I murmured, "as truly as there was only one for the first lonely man. I know not how it is with her, but I hope—oh, what would life now be to me without this hope!— that she cannot have inspired this absolute conviction that she is essential to my being without some answering sympathy in her own woman's heart. But whether this is true or not, or whether it ever can be true, I have met my fate."

As I returned from the garden I saw that the dawn was coming, and I sat down and watched it brighten with the feeling that a new and happy life was also coming.

THE END OF BOOK FIRST



BOOK SECOND



CHAPTER I

THE DAY AFTER

The epochs of one's life are not divided according to the calendar, nor are they measured by the lapse of time. Within a few brief hours I had reached a conclusion that left no shadow of doubt on my mind. As I sat there in the beautiful June dawn I turned a page in my history. The record of future joys and ills would have to be kept in double entry, for I felt with absolute conviction that I could entertain no project and decide no question without instinctively and naturally consulting the maiden who had quietly and as if by divine right obtained the mastery of my soul. But a day since I would have said that my present attitude was impossible, but now it seemed both right and inevitable. The doubt, the sense of strangeness and remoteness that we justly associate with a comparative stranger, had utterly passed away, and in their place was a feeling of absolute trust and rest. I could place in her hands the best treasures of my life, without a shadow of hesitancy, so strongly had I been impressed with her truth.

And yet it all was a beautiful mystery, over which I could have dreamed for hours.

I had not shunned society in the past, and had greatly admired other ladies. Their voices had been sweet and low, as a woman's tones should be, and their glances gentle and kind, but not one of them had possessed the power to quicken my pulse or to disturb the quiet slumber of my heart; but this woman spoke to me as with authority from heaven. "My whole being," I murmured, "bows down to her by a constraint that I could scarcely resist, and no queen in the despotic past ever had a more loyal subject than I have become. To serve her, even to suffer for her and to stand between her and all evils the world could inflict, are privileges that I covet supremely. My regard is not a sudden passion, for passion is selfish and inconsiderate. My love is already united with honor and reverence, and my strongest impulse is to promote her happiness before my own. The thought of her is an inspiration toward a purer, better manhood than I have yet known. Her truth and innate nobility produce an intense desire to become like her, so that she may look into my eyes and trust also."

I scarcely know how long my bright-hued dream would have lasted, but at length the door of Mrs. Yocomb's room opened, and steps were on the stairs. A moment later the physician came out, and Miss Warren stood in the doorway.

"They are all sleeping quietly," he said, in answer to my inquiry. "Yes; all danger in Zillah's case is now passed, I think; but she's had a serious time of it, poor little thing!"

"There's no need of your walking home to-night," protested Miss Warren. "We can make you comfortable here, and Reuben will gladly drive you over in the morning."

"It's morning now," he said, smiling, "and I'll enjoy the walk in the fresh air. I'll call again before very long. Good-day!" and he walked lightly down the path, as if all were very satisfactory to him.

"What are you doing here, Mr. Morton?" Miss Warren asked, assuming an expression of strong surprise.

"Helping to watch."

"What a waste! You haven't done Zillah a bit of good."

"Didn't you know I was here?"

"Yes; but I hope you don't think that I need watching?"

"I was within call." "So you would have been if sleeping. I could have blown the great tin horn if it had been necessary to waken you, and you had remained undisturbed by other means."

"Oh, well, then, if it made no difference to you, I'll merely say I'm a night editor, and kept awake from habit."

"I didn't say it made no difference to me," she answered. "You ought to have known better than to have made that speech."

"Miss Warren," I urged anxiously, "you look white as a ghost in this mingling of moonlight and morning. When will you rest?"

"When the mind and heart are at rest a tired body counts for little. So you're not afraid of ghosts?"

I looked at her intently as I replied: "No, I would like to be haunted all my life."

It was not wholly the reflection of the dawn that tinged the pallor of her face as I spoke these words.

After a moment's hesitation she apparently dismissed a thought, and maintained her old frank manner.

"Oh, how beautiful, how welcome the morning is!" she exclaimed, coming out on the piazza. "To think that this is the same world that we saw last night—it's almost impossible."

"Mr. Yocomb's words will yet prove true," I said, "and clearer skies and better grain will be the result of the storm."

"Oh, I'm so glad, I'm so very glad," she murmured. "This morning is like a benediction;" and its brightness and beauty glowed in her face.

"I can tell you something that will please you greatly," I continued. "I have visited the little home in the garden that was open to last night's sky. The father and mother robins are well, and I'm sure all the little ones are too, for the mother robin had her head under her wing—a thing impossible, I suppose, if anything was amiss with the children."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" she again repeated, and there was a joyous, exquisite thrill in her tones.

At that moment there came a burst of song from the top of the pear- tree in the garden, and we saw the head of the little household greeting the day.

Almost as sweetly and musically my companion's laugh trilled out:

"So it wasn't the day of fate after all."

Impelled by an impulse that for the moment seemed irresistible, I took her hand as I said earnestly:

"Yes, Miss Warren, for me it was, whether for a lifetime of happiness or of disappointment."

At first she appeared startled, and gave me a swift, searching glance; then a strong expression of pain passed over her face. She understood me well, for my look and manner would have been unmistakable to any woman.

She withdrew her hand as she said gently:

"You are overwrought from watching—from all that's happened; let us both forget that such rash words were spoken."

"Do not think it," I replied, slowly and deliberately. "I have learned to know you better since we have met than I could in months or years amid the conventionalities of society. In you I recognize my fate as vividly and distinctly as I saw you in the lightning's gleam last night. Please hear and understand me," I urged, as she tried to check my words by a strong gesture of dissent. "If you had parents or guardians, I would ask them for the privilege of seeking your hand. Since you have not, I ask you. At least, give me a chance. I can never prove worthy of you, but by years of devotion I can prove that I appreciate you."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, so very sorry you feel so," she said, and there was deep distress in her tones; "I was in hopes we should be life-long friends."

"We shall be," I replied quietly. She looked at me hesitatingly a moment, then said impulsively:

"Mr. Morton, you are too honorable a man to seek that which belongs to another. There," she added, flushing deeply, "I've told you what I've acknowledged to no one—scarcely to myself."

I know that the light of hope faded out of my face utterly, for I felt ill and faint. If in truth she belonged to another, her absolute truth would make her so loyal to him that further hope would be not only vain but an insult, which she would be the first to resent.

"I understand you too well," I began despondently, "to say another word. Miss Warren. I—I wish—it seems rather odd I should have felt so toward you when it was no use. It was as inevitable as our meeting. The world and all that's in it is an awful muddle to me. But God bless you, and if there's any good God, you will be blessed." I shivered as I spoke, and was about to leave the piazza hastily, when her eager and entreating tones detained me.

"Mr. Morton, you said that in spite of all we should be friends; let me claim my privilege at once. I'm sure I'm right in believing that you're overwrought and morbid, from the strange experiences you have just passed through. Do not add to your exhaustion by starting off on another aimless walk to-day; though you may think it might lead you to a better fate, it cannot bring you to those who care so deeply for you. We'll be merry, true-hearted friends after we've had time to rest and think it all over."

"True-hearted, anyway," I said emphatically. "What's more, I'll be sane when we meet again—entirely matter-of-fact, indeed, since I already foresee that I shall be troubled by no more days of fate. Good-by now; go and sleep the sleep of the just; I'll rest quietly here;" and I held out my hand.

She took it in both of hers, and said gently: "Mr. Morton, I believe you saved my—our lives last night."

"I had some hand in it—yes, that should be happiness enough. I'll make it answer; but never speak of it again."

"When I cease to think of it I shall cease to think at all," she said, in strong emphasis; and with a lingering wistful glance she passed slowly in and up the winding stairway.

I watched her as I would a ship that had left me on a desolate rock.

"She is one that could not change if she would," I thought. "It's all over. No matter; possibly I saved her life."

I sat down again in a rustic chair on the piazza, too miserable and disheartened to do more than endure the pain of my disappointment. Indeed there was nothing else to do, for seemingly I had set my heart on the impossible. Her words and manner had made but one impression— that she had given her love and faith to an earlier and more fortunate suitor.

"It would be strange if it were otherwise," I muttered. "I was the 'idiot,' in thinking that her gentlemen friends were blind; but I protest against a world in which men are left to blunder so fatally. The other day I felt broken down physically; I now know that I'm broken and disabled in all respects. The zest and color have wholly gone out of life. If I ever go back to my work I shall find my counterpart in the most jaded and dispirited stage-horse in the city. Miss Warren will have no more occasion to criticise light, smart paragraphs. Indeed, I imagine that I shall soon be restricted to the obituary notices, and I now feel like writing my own. Confound these birds! What makes them sing so? Nature's a heartless jade anyway. Last night she would have burned us up with lightning, and this morning there would have been not a whit less of song and sunshine. Oh, well, it's far better that my hopes are in ashes than that this house should be. I, and all there is of me, is a small price to pay for this home and its inmates; and if I saved her little finger from being scorched, I should be well content. But why the devil did I feel so toward her when it was of no use! That fact irritates me. Is my whole nature a lie, and are its deepest intuitions and most sacred impulses false guides that lead one out into the desert to perish? In the crisis of my life, when I had been made to see that past tendencies were wrong, and I was ready for any change for the better, my random, aimless steps led to this woman, and, as I said to her, the result was inevitable. All nature seemed in league to give emphasis to the verdict of my own heart, but the moment I reached the conviction that she was created for me and I for her, I am informed that she was created for another. I must therefore be one of the odd ones, for whom there is no mate. Curse it all! I rather feel as if another man were going to marry my wife, and I must admit that I have a consuming curiosity to see him.

"But this can't be. Her heart must have recognized the true kinship in this other man—blast him! no, bless him, if she marries him—for she's the last one in the world to enter into merely legal relations, unsanctioned by the best and purest instincts of her womanly nature.

"It's all the devil's own muddle."

And no better conclusion did I reach that dismal morning—the most dismal I can remember, although the hour abounded in beauty and the glad, exuberant life that follows a summer rain. I once heard a preacher say that hell could be in heaven and heaven in hell. I thought him a trifle irreverent at the time, but now half believed him right.

My waking train of thought ended in a stupor in which I do not think I lost for a moment the dull consciousness of pain. I was aroused by a step upon the gravel-path, and, starting up, saw the woman who served Mrs. Yocomb in the domestic labors of the farmhouse. She stopped and stared at me a moment, and then was about to continue around the house to the kitchen entrance.

"Wait a moment, my good woman," I said; "and you'll now have a chance to prove yourself a good woman, and a very helpful and considerate one, too. The house was struck by lightning last night."

"Lord a massy!" she ejaculated, and she struck an attitude with her hands on her hips, and stared at me again, with her small eyes and capacious mouth opened to their utmost extent.

"Yes," I continued, "and all were hurt except Reuben. The doctor has been here, and all are now better and sleeping, so please keep the house quiet, and let us sleep till the doctor comes again. Then have a good fire, so that you can get ready at once whatever he orders for the patients."

"Lord a massy!" she again remarked very emphatically, and scuttled off to her kitchen domains in great excitement.

I now felt that my watch had ended, and that I could give the old farmhouse into the hands of one accustomed to its care. Therefore I wearily climbed the stairs to my room, and threw myself, dressed, on the lounge.

After a moment or two Miss Warren's door opened, and her light step passed down to the kitchen. She, too, had been on the watch for the coming of the domestic, and, if aware that I had seen the woman, did not regard me as competent to enlighten her as to her duties for the day. The kitchen divinity began at once:

"Lord a massy, Miss Em'ly, what a time yer's all had! The strange man told me. There hain't no danger now, is there?"

In response to some remark from Miss Warren she continued, in shrill volubility:

"Yes, he told me yer's all struck but Reub'n. I found him a-sittin' on the stoop, and a-lookin' all struck of a heap himself. Is that the way lightning 'fects folks? He looked white as a ghost, and as if he didn't keer ef he was one afore night. 'Twas amazin'—" and here Miss Warren evidently silenced her.

I heard the murmur of her voice as she gave a few brief directions, and then her steps returned swiftly to her room.

"She can be depended upon," I sighed, "to do all she thinks right. She must have been wearied beyond mortal endurance, and worried by my rash and unlooked-for words, and yet she keeps up till all need is past. Every little act shows that I might as well try to win an angel of heaven as sue against her conscience, she is so absolutely true. You're right, old woman; I was 'struck,' and I wish it had been by lightning only."

Just when I exchanged waking thoughts for hateful dreams I do not remember. At last I started to my feet, exclaiming:

"It's all wrong; he shall not marry my wife!" and then I sat down on the lounge and tried to extricate myself from the shadows of sleep, and thus become able to recognize the facts of the real world that I must now face. Slowly the events of the previous day and night came back, and with them a sense of immeasurable loss. The sun was low in the west, thus proving that my unrefreshing stupor had lasted many hours. The clatter of knives, and forks indicated preparations for supper in the dining-room below. I dreaded meeting the family and all words of thanks, as one would the touching of a diseased nerve. More than all, I dreaded meeting Miss Warren again, feeling that we both would be under a wretched constraint. My evil mood undoubtedly had physical causes, for my mouth was parched, my head throbbed and ached, and I felt so ill in body and mind, so morbid and depressed, that I was ready to escape to New York without seeing a soul, were the thing possible.

The door opened softly, and I saw Reuben's ruddy, happy face.

"Oh, I'm so glad thee's awake," he said. "They're all doing well. Adah's got well so fast that she actually looks better than Emily Warren. Even Zillah's quite bright this evening, only she's so weak she can't sit up much, but the doctor says it'll wear away. Thee doesn't look very extra, and no wonder, thee did so much. Father, mother, and Emily Warren have been talking about thee for the last two hours, and Adah can't ask questions enough about thee, and how thee found her. She says the last thing she saw was thee on the lawn, and thee was the first thing she saw when she came to, and now she says she can't help seeing thee all the time. Emily Warren said we must let thee sleep as long as thee would, for that, she said, was what thee needed most of all."

"She's mistaken," I muttered, starting up. "Reuben," I continued aloud, "you're a good, brave fellow. I'll come down to supper as soon, as I can fairly wake up. I feel as stupid as an owl at midday, but I'm exceedingly glad that all are doing well."

When he left me I thought, "Well, I will keep up for two or three hours, and then can excuse myself. To-morrow I can return to New York, since clearly this will be no place for me. Miss Warren thinks that a little sleep will cure me, and that I will be sane and sensible now that I am awake. She will find me matter-of-fact indeed, for I feel like a bottle of champagne that has stood uncorked for a month; but may the devil fly away with me if I play the forlorn, lackadaisical lover, and show my wounds."

I bathed my face again and again, and made as careful a toilet as circumstances permitted.

In their kind-hearted simplicity they had evidently planned a sort of family ovation, for as I came out on the piazza, they were all there except Miss Warren, who sat at her piano playing softly; but as Mr. Yocomb rose to greet me she turned toward us, and through the open window could see us and hear all that passed. The old gentleman still bore marks of his shock and the illness that followed, but there was nothing weak or limp in his manner as he grasped my hand and began warmly:

"Richard Morton, last night I said thee was welcome; I now say this home is as truly thine as mine. Thee saved mother and the children from—" and here his voice was choked by emotion.

Mrs. Yocomb seized my other hand, and I saw that she was "moved" now if ever, for her face was eloquent with kindly, grateful feeling.

"Please don't," I said, so sharply as to indicate irritation, for I felt that I could not endure another syllable. Then, slapping Reuben brusquely on the shoulder, I added, "Reuben was quite as helpful as I: thank him. Any tramp from New York would try to do as much as I did, and might have done better. Ah, here is Zillah!" And I saw that the little girl was propped up on pillows just within the parlor window, where she could enjoy the cool evening air without too great exposure. "If she'll give me another kiss we'll call it all square and say no more about it," and I leaned over the window-sill.

The child put her arms around my neck and clung to me for a moment. There could have been no better antidote for my mood of irritable protest against my fate than the child's warm and innocent embrace, and for a moment it was balm indeed.

"There," I cried, kissing her twice, "now I'm overpaid." Raising my eyes, I met those of Miss Warren as she sat by her piano.

"Yes," she said, with a smile, "after that I should think you would be more than content."

"I certainly ought to be," I replied, looking at her steadily.

"Zillah's very grateful," Miss Warren continued. "She knows that you watched with her till morning."

"So did other night-owls, Zillah, and they were quite as useful as I was."

She reached up her hand and pulled me down. "Mother said," she began.

"You needn't tell a stranger what mother said," and I put my finger on her lips.

"Thee's no more of a stranger than Emily Warren," said the little girl reproachfully. "I can't think of thee without thinking of her."

I raised my eyes in a quick flash toward the young lady, but she had turned to the piano, and her right hand was evoking a few low chords.

"Miss Warren can tell you," I said, laughing, "that when people have been struck by lightning they often don't think straight for a long time to come."

"Crooked thinking sometimes happens without so vivid a cause," Miss Warren responded, without looking around.

"Zillah's right in thinking that thee can never be a stranger in this home," said Mrs. Yocomb warmly.

"Mrs. Yocomb, please don't think me insensible to the feelings which are so apparent. Should I live centuries, the belief that I had served you and yours after your kindness would still be my pleasantest thought. But you overrate what I have done: it was such obvious duty that any one would have done the same, or else his ears should have been cropped. It gives me a miserably mean feeling to have you thank me so for it. Please don't any more."

"We forget," said Miss Warren, advancing to the window, "that Mr. Morton is versed in tragedies, and has daily published more dreadful affairs."

"Yes, and has written 'paragraphs' about them that no doubt seemed quite as lurid as the events themselves, suggesting that I gloated over disasters as so much material."

"Mr. Morton, isn't it nearly as bad to tell fibs about one's self as about other people?"

"My depravity will be a continuous revelation to you, Miss Warren," I replied.

With a low laugh she answered, "I see you make no secret of it," and she went back to her piano.

I had bowed cordially to Adah as I joined the family group, and had been conscious all the time of her rather peculiar and fixed scrutiny, which I imagined suggested a strong curiosity more than anything else.

"Well, Richard Morton," said Mr. Yocomb, as if the words were irrepressible, "thee knows a little of how we feel toward thee, if thee won't let us say as much as we would like. I love this old home in which I was born and have lived until this day. I could never build another home like it if every leaf on the farm were a bank-note. But I love the people who live here far more. Richard Morton, I know how it would all have ended, and thee knows. The house was on fire, and all within it were helpless and unconscious. I've seen it all to-day, and Reuben has told us. May the Lord bless thee for what them hast done for me and mine! I'm not going to burden thee with our gratitude, but truth is truth, and we must speak out once for all, to be satisfied. Thee knows, too, that when a Friend has anything on his mind it's got to come; hasn't it, mother? Richard Morton, thee has saved us all from a horrible death."

"Yes, Mr. Morton," said Miss Warren, coming again to the window and laughing at my crimson face and embarrassment, "you must face that truth—there's no escaping it. Forgive me, Mr. Yocomb, for laughing over so serious a subject, but Reuben and Mr. Morton amuse me greatly. Mr. Morton already says that any tramp from New York would have done the same. By easy transition he will soon begin to insist that it was some other tramp. I now understand evolution."

"Emily Warren, thee needn't laugh at Richard Morton," said Reuben a little indignantly; "thee owes more to him than to any other man living."

She did not turn to the piano so quickly now but that I saw her face flush at the unlooked-for speech.

"That you are mistaken, Reuben, no one knows better than Miss Warren herself," I replied irritably.

She turned quickly and said, in a low tone, "You are right, Mr. Morton. Friends do not keep a debit and credit account with each other. I shall not forget, however, that Reuben is right also, even though I may seem to sometimes," and she left the room.

I was by the open window, and I do not think any one heard her words except Zillah, and she did not understand them.

I stood looking after her, forgetful of all else, when a hand laid upon my arm caused me to look around, and I met Adah's gaze, and it was as fixed and intent as that of a child.

"She doesn't owe thee any more than I do," she said gravely. "I wish I could do something for thee."

"Why do you say 'thee' to me now?—you always said 'you' before," I asked.

"I don't know. It seems as if I couldn't say 'you' to thee any more," and a delicate color stole into her face.

"We all feel as if thee were one of us now," explained Mrs. Yocomb gently, "and I trust that life will henceforth seem to Adah a more sacred thing, and worthy of more sacred uses." And she passed into the house to prepare for supper.

Mr. Yocomb followed her, and Reuben went down to the barn.

"If you live to grow like your mother, Miss Adah, you will be the most beautiful woman in the world," I said frankly, for I felt as if I could speak to her almost as I would to Zillah.

Her eyes drooped and her color deepened as she shook her head and murmured:

"I'd rather be Emily Warren than any other woman in the world."

Her words and manner so puzzled me that I thought she had not fully recovered from the effects of the shock, and I replied, in an off-hand way:

"After a few weeks of teaching stupid children to turn noise into music you would gladly be yourself again."

She paid no heed to this remark, but, with the same intent, exploring look, asked:

"Thee was the first one I saw when I came to last night?"

"Yes, and you were much afraid of me."

"I was foolish—I fear mother's right, and I've always been foolish."

"Your manner last night was most natural. I was a stranger, and a hard-looking customer, too, when I entered your room."

"I hope I didn't look very—very bad."

"You looked so like a beautiful piece of marble that I feared you were dead."

"Thee wouldn't have cared much."

"Indeed I would. If you knew how anxious I was about Zillah—"

"Ugh!" she interrupted, with an expression of strong disgust, "I might have been a horrid, blackened thing if it hadn't been for thee."

"Oh, hush!" I cried; "I merely threw a couple of pails of water on the roof. Please say no more about it."

She passed her hand over her brow, and said hesitatingly:

"I'm so puzzled—I feel so strangely. It seems an age since yesterday."

"You've had a very severe shock, Miss Adah."

"Yes, that may be it; but it's so strange that I was afraid of thee."

"Why, Miss Adah, I was wet as a drowned rat, and had a black mark across my nose. I would have made an ideal burglar."

"That oughtn't to have made any difference; thee was trying to save my life."

"But you didn't know it."

"I don't believe I know anything rightly. I—I feel so strange—just as if I had waked up and hadn't got anything clear. But I know this much, in spite of what Reuben said," she added impulsively; "Emily Warren doesn't owe thee any more than I do." And she turned like a flash and was gone.

"Poor child," I muttered, "she hasn't recovered so fully as the others."

I had been holding one of Zillah's hands during the interview, and she now pulled me down and whispered:

"What's the matter with thee, Richard Morton?"

"Heaven grant you may never know, little one. Good-by." I had scarcely left the piazza, however, before Mrs. Yocomb called:

"Richard Morton, thee must be famished. Come to supper."



CHAPTER II

"IT WAS INEVITABLE"

I ought to have had a ravenous appetite but I had none at all. I ought to have been glad and thankful from the depths of my heart, but I was so depressed that everything I said was forced and unnatural. My head felt as if it were bursting, and I was enraged with myself and the wretched result of my bright dream. Indeed I found myself inclined to a spirit of recklessness and irritation that was wellnigh irresistible.

Miss Warren seemed as wholly free from any morbid, unnatural tendencies as Mr. Yocomb himself, and she did her utmost to make the hour as genial as it should have been. At first I imagined that she was trying to satisfy herself that I had recovered my senses, and that my unexpected words, spoken in the morning, were the result of a mood that was as transient as it was abnormal. I think I puzzled her; I certainly did not understand myself any better than did poor Adah, whose mind appeared to be in solution from the effects of the lightning, and I felt that I must be appearing worse than idiotic.

Miss Warren, resolutely bent on banishing every unnatural constraint, asked Mr. Yocomb:

"How is my genuine friend, Old Plod? Did the lightning wake him up?"

"No, he plods as heavily as ever this morning. Thee only can wake him up."

"You've no idea what a compliment that is," she said, with a low laugh. "Old Plod inspires me with a sense of confidence and stability that is very reassuring in a world full of lightning flashes."

"Yes," I said, "he is safe as a horse-block, and quite as exhilarating. Give me Dapple."

She looked at me quickly and keenly, and colored slightly. She evidently had some association in her mind with the old plow-horse that I did not understand.

"Exhilaration scarcely answers as a steady diet, Mr. Morton."

"Little chance of its lasting long," I replied, "even in a world overcharged with electricity."

"I prefer calm, steady sunshine to these wild alternations."

"I doubt it; 'calm, steady sunshine' would make the world as dry and monotonous as a desert."

"That's true, Richard Morton," said Mr. Yocomb. "I like peace and quiet more than most men, but even if we had all burned up last night, this part of the world would have been wonderfully the better for the storm. I reckon it was worth a million or more dollars to the county."

"That's the right way to look at it, Mr. Yocomb," I said carelessly. "The greatest good to the greatest number. Individuals are of no account."

"Your philosophy may be true, but I don't like it," Miss Warren protested. "A woman doesn't generalize."

"Thy philosophy is only half true, Richard Morton. God cares for each one of His children, and every one in my house counts for much to me."

"There's no getting ahead of thee, mother. If we want to talk heresy, Richard Morton, we must go off by ourselves."

"I think God showed His love for us in a queer way last night," said Adah, abruptly.

Both her father and mother looked pained at this speech, and Mrs. Yocomb said gravely:

"Thee'll see things in the true light some day, I hope. The lightning bolt may have been a message from Heaven to thee."

"It seems to me that Zillah got more of the message than I did, and she didn't need any," said the matter-of-fact Adah, "At any rate I hope Richard Morton may be here if I ever get another message."

"I shall surely be struck next time," I laughed, a trifle bitterly; "for according to Mrs. Yocomb's view I need a message more than any of you."

It was evident that neither Adah nor I was in a frame of mind that Mrs. Yocomb could commend.

"As you suggested, Mr. Morton, if some other tramp from New York had been present, what a thrilling narrative you could write for your paper," Miss Warren began. Seemingly she had had enough of clouds the previous evening, and was bent on clear skies to-night.

She found me incorrigible, however, for I said briefly:

"Oh, no, it would only make an item among the crimes and casualties."

Undaunted, she replied: "And such might have been its appropriate place had not the doctor arrived so promptly. The casualty had already occurred, and I'm quite sure you would have finished us all with original remedies if left to yourself."

"I agree with you, Miss Warren; blunders are worse than crimes, and I've a genius for them."

"Well, I'm not a genius in any sense of the word. Miss Adah and I look at things as they are. One would think, Mr. Morton, accepting your view of yourself, that you could supply your paper with all the crimes and casualties required, as the result of the genius you claim."

"Stupid blunders would make stupid reading."

"Oh, that column in your paper is very interesting, then?"

"Why shouldn't it be? I've never had the bad taste to publish in it anything about myself."

"I fail to find any logic in that remark. Have you a conscience, Mr. Morton?"

"The idea of an editor having a conscience! I doubt whether you have ever seen New York, Miss Warren, you are so unsophisticated."