made no suggestion of
sitting in the house. They all assembled on the verandah, which faced
south, so that generally here, if anywhere, a breath of evening coolness
might be had. To-night, however, no such breath was to be felt. The
thunder-heads had crept up, up, half-way across the sky; their snowy
white had changed to blackish blue; and now and again, there opened
here or there what looked like a deep cavern, filled with lurid flame;
and then would follow a long, rolling murmur, dying away into faint
mutterings and losing itself among the treetops.

Miss Sophronia was very uneasy. At one moment she declared she must go
into the house, she could not endure this; the next she vowed she would
rather see the danger as it came, and she would never desert the others,
never.

"Do you think there is danger, my dear young man?" she asked, for
perhaps the tenth time.

"Why, no!" said Gerald. "No more than usual, Miss Montfort. These trees,
you see, are a great protection. If the lightning strikes one of them,
of course it will divert the fluid from the house. If you have no iron
about your person--"

But here Miss Sophronia interrupted him. She begged to be excused for a
moment, and went into the house. When she returned, her head was
enveloped in what looked like a "tidy" of purple wool, while her feet
were shuffling along in a pair of blue knitted slippers.

"There!" she said, "I have removed every atom of metal, my dear young
man, down to my hairpins, I assure you; and there were nails in my
shoes, Margaret. My dear, I advise you to follow my example. So
important, I always say, to obey the dictates of science. I shall always
consider it a special providence that sent this dear young man to us at
this trying time. Go at once, dearest Margaret, I implore you."

But Margaret refused to adopt any such measures of precaution. She was
enjoying the slow oncoming of the storm; she had seldom seen anything
more beautiful, she thought, and Gerald agreed with her. He was sitting
near her, and had taken Merton on his knee, to that young gentleman's
manifest discomposure. He wriggled now and then, and muttered some
excuse for getting down, but Gerald blandly assured him each time that
he was not inconveniencing him in the least, and begged him to make
himself comfortable, and entirely at home. Meantime, Margaret had
called Basil and Susan D. to her side, and was holding a hand of each,
calling upon them from time to time to see