“Thank you,” replied grandma, the mockery gone at the earnest tone. “Well, my dear boy, I wish you joy in finding the ‘one woman.’”
Lisa in the corner heard every word, and was battling against indignation and self-reproach. “He scorns me. I suppose it is I against whom he is casting his arrows of scorn and letting my own grandmother know it. Oh, I can’t endure him!” And she put down her little companion so abruptly that the child felt quite aggrieved, for she was in the midst of a story about Callie and Amber, the yellow cat.
Just at this moment there came a sudden rushing sound up from the water. The sky, which had been overclouded, showed a strange funnel-shaped cloud moving rapidly along. In an incredibly short space of time the gale was upon them. Every one rushed into the house to lower windows and to fasten the blinds, which were flapping in the fierce wind. For a few moments it seemed as if the spirits of chaos were abroad; the mighty roar of the wind surging along, rising to a terrific shriek as it passed over the land; the snapping of trees whose branches were hurled violently against the house; the dash of the salt spray flung with fury upon the windows looking toward the bay front; the threatening flashes of lightning; the sullen roll of thunder which, as the storm came nearer, increased to an incessant crashing, all made a season of terror to every one.
Persis sought her grandmother’s side; Annis cowered near her mother; Basil tried to quiet his mother’s fears; Porter, boy like, darted from window to window, peering out into the darkness, which seemed filled with the writhing, swaying forms of storm-tossed trees. Lisa stood with her hands clasped, never saying a word, but gazing into the outer world with an expression of wonder.
“It is a terrible gale,” said Mr. Danforth at her side.
“It is wonderful, mysterious,” rejoined Lisa. “I feel as if I were seeing ‘Dante’s Inferno.’”
Presently Grandma Estabrook’s voice rose solemnly in the words of Cowper’s old hymn,—
“God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,