t if Miss Mallory, who is a young lady,
could speak to him, so could I, who am not out yet."

"We won't discuss this any further at present," said Mrs. Randolph,
stiffly, as the major smiled grimly at Rose. "The earthquake seems to
have shaken down in this house more than the chimneys."

It certainly had shaken all power of sleep from the eyes of Rose when
the household at last dispersed to lie down in their clothes on
the mattresses which had been arranged under the awnings. She was
continually starting up from confused dreams of the ground shaking under
her, or she seemed to be standing on the brink of some dreadful abyss
like the great chasm on the grain-field, when it began to tremble and
crumble beneath her feet. It was near morning when, unable to endure
it any longer, she managed without disturbing the sleeping Adele,
who occupied the same curtained recess with her, to slip out from
the awning. Wrapped in a thick shawl, she made her way through the
encompassing trees and bushes of the garden that had seemed to imprison
and suffocate her, to the edge of the grain-field, where she could
breathe the fresh air beneath an open, starlit sky. There was no moon
and the darkness favored her; she had no fears that weighed against the
horror of seclusion with her own fancies. Besides, they were camping
OUT of the house, and if she chose to sit up or walk about, no one could
think it strange. She wished her father were here that she might have
some one of her own kin to talk to, yet she knew not what to say to him
if he had come. She wanted somebody to sympathize with her feelings,--or
rather, perhaps, some one to combat and even ridicule the uneasiness
that had lately come over her. She knew what her father would say,--"Do
you want to go, or do you want to stay here? Do you like these people,
or do you not?" She remembered the one or two glowing and enthusiastic
accounts she had written him of her visit here, and felt herself
blushing again. What would he think of Mrs. Randolph's opening and
answering the telegram? Wouldn't he find out from the major if she had
garbled the sense of his dispatch?

Away to the right, in the midst of the distant and invisible
wheat-field, there was the same intermittent star, which like a living,
breathing thing seemed to dilate in glowing respiration, as she had seen
it the first night of her visit. Mr. Bent's forge! It must be nearly
daylight now; the poor fellow had been up all night, or