erce storm was rolling away; darkness was giving place, outside, to
the sunset glow which, during all the terror and gloom, had lain
waiting.

"'And I saw a new heaven, and a new earth: for the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away and there was no more sea.'" Janet's voice
repeated the words slowly, tenderly. Their beauty held her fancy.

"Davy explains that"--Susan's muffled words came dully--"this way. He
says the old happy time, when William Henry an' me was young an' lovin',
you know about that?"

"Yes, Susan Jane."

"Well, that was the first heaven an' earth fur us, an' it's passed
away!" The woman was sobbing as a frightened child sobs when fear and
danger have passed and relief has opened the flood gates.

"I don't know how William Henry is goin' t' bide a new heaven without
any sea, Janet; he sot a lot by the sea! Always a-goin' out when it was
the wildest an' trickiest! He use t' say, he'd like t' go to glory by
water, an' he did, he did! I wasn't none older than you be, Janet, when
he went down, an' the cruel waves kept him, kept him forever!"

"There, there, Susan Jane, you know they did not keep the part you
loved. That part is safe where there is no more sea!" Solemnly the girl
spoke as she smoothed the throbbing head.

"Yes! Like as not you're right, Janet. An' he'll find other comfort in
that heaven. He was the patientest, cheerfulest body; an' never a quick
word fur me. Janet, don't you ever tell, but I'm afraid t' see the
ocean! I'm afraid, because I'm always a-thinkin' his dead white face
might come up t' me--on a wave!"

"Poor Susan Jane! It will never come to harm you. I would not fear. I
love the sea. If it had been my William Henry, I should have watched for
his face shining in the beautiful curly waves, and had I seen it, I
would have stretched out my arms to him, and we would have gone away--to
glory together!"

"Not if the face was a--dead face, Janet!" A horror rang in the words.

"Somehow," the girl replied, "I could never think it dead, if it came
that way. 'And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there
shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there
be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.'"

"That's it, Janet," Susan Jane's voice trailed sleepily; "the former
things are the things what has the tears, an' the pains, an' the hurts;
an' they must pass away before there can be any kind of a heaven that's
worth while