"It is an awful night now!" murmured Mary Fuller, shivering. "How the rain beats; how the old trees tug and wrestle against the wind! The valley is full of fierce noises. I cannot even hear the river in all this rush of wind and water."
"So it was then," said uncle Nathan, "but there was another sound, that I seem to hear now deep in my very heart."
"What was it, uncle Nathan? A wolf or a panther? Such animals used to prowl among the hills here, I know."
"It was the cry of a young child, darter, of our Anna's baby; a little, feeble wail; but I should have heard it, if the storm had been twice as loud. I had been sitting here, from sundown to ten o'clock, with no company but my fears and the raging storm. Hannah came, once or twice, and put her pale face through the door, and went off again as if she wanted me out of the way, but for the whole world I couldn't have moved till that little cry came."
"But you went then," said Mary Fuller, deeply moved, "of course you went then."
"I got up to go, but it was of no use; my knees shook, and knocked together; the porch seemed whirling around, rain and all; I made one step toward the out-room; fell into the chair, and burst out a crying. The baby's voice had taken away all my strength."
"But you didn't sit here all night, in a storm like this!" said Mary.
"After awhile—I don't know how long—I got up and went into the house. Everything was still as death. I stood at the out-room door and listened. There was no noise. I thought it was the storm that drowned everything, and opened the door. Hannah was not there, nor Salina either, but a window had blown open, and in drifted the rain and wind over the bed that stood close by it—poor Anna's bed. I could not see distinctly, my eyes were blinded with the storm that leapt into my face, and I could hardly close the window agin it.
"At last I got the sash down and went up to Anna's bed. She was there"—
"Well!" said Mary, at length, in a low whisper.