bout to play.

"Shall we get over in time, Louis?" asked Mr Park, as he turned to the
guide, who sat holding the tiller with a firm grasp; while the men,
aware of the necessity of reaching shelter ere the storm burst upon
them, were bending to the oars with steady and sustained energy.

"Perhaps," replied Louis, laconically.--"Pull, lads, pull! else you'll
have to sleep in wet skins to-night."

A low growl of distant thunder followed the guide's words, and the men
pulled with additional energy; while the slow, measured hiss of the
water, and the clank of oars, as they cut swiftly through the lake's
clear surface, alone interrupted the dead silence that ensued.

Charley and his friend conversed in low whispers; for there is a strange
power in a thunderstorm, whether raging or about to break, that overawes
the heart of man,--as if Nature's God were nearer then than at other
times; as if He--whose voice indeed, if listened to, speaks even in the
slightest evolution of natural phenomena--were about to tread the
visible earth with more than usual majesty, in the vivid glare of the
lightning flash, and in the awful crash of thunder.

"I don't know how it is, but I feel more like a coward," said Charley,
"just before a thunderstorm than I think I should do in the arms of a
polar bear. Do you feel queer, Harry?"

"A little," replied Harry, in a low whisper; "and yet I'm not
frightened. I can scarcely tell what I feel, but I'm certain it's not
fear."

"Well, I don't know," said Charley. "When father's black bull chased
Kate and me in the prairies, and almost overtook us as we ran for the
fence of the big field, I felt my heart leap to my mouth, and the blood
rush to my cheeks, as I turned about and faced him, while Kate climbed
the fence; but after she was over, I felt a wild sort of wickedness in
me, as if I should like to tantalise and torment him,--and I felt
altogether different from what I feel now while I look up at these black
clouds. Isn't there something quite awful in them, Harry?"

Ere Harry replied, a bright flash of lightning shot athwart the sky,
followed by a loud roar of thunder, and in a moment the wind rushed,
like a fiend set suddenly free, down upon the boats, tearing up the
smooth surface of the water as it flew, and cutting it into gleaming
white streaks. Fortunately the storm came down behind the boats, so
that, after the first wild burst was over, they hoisted a small portion
of their lug sa