Mary was very thoughtful. The story she had heard for the first time; the rush of the storm; the darkness that seemed to surround her, body and soul, was cruelly depressing. It seemed like an epoch in her life, as if some grave event were approaching in which she must hold a share.
"Now, darter," said uncle Nathan, laying his hand or her head, "you and I have got a secret between us. It's the first time in years that I have mentioned Anna. We needn't be afraid to talk about her now, when Hannah isn't by."
Just then, amid the turmoil of winds, and the tossing of trees, a burst of thunder shook the house in every timber. Then came flash after flash of lightning, shooting long fiery trails through the rain, and spreading sheets of lurid flame in the air. Another crash, another burst of fire, and lo! a column of flame shot up into the blackened sky, lighting the river, the hills, and all the minute surroundings of uncle Nathan's house; as it were with a fiery cataract.
"It is the dry hemlock by the river-side," cried uncle Nathan; "that night it was struck for the first time, this night for the last," and he rushed out bareheaded, into the storm of fire and rain that deluged the valley.
Mary followed him. A little further down the valley was the grave-yard. The stones with which it was crowded gleamed cold and ghastly in the light of the burning hemlock.
On two of these stones, somewhat apart, but facing the same way, Mary could see the black lines with gloomy distinctness.
"Isn't it strange?" said uncle Nathan, pointing toward the stones, "isn't it strange that the light should fall strongest on those two graves, just as we were talking about them for the first time? What is going to happen now? That night two children came into the world, and one good soul went out of it. While Farnham's wife lay under her silk curtains, with her baby warm and sleeping by her side, our Anna lay alone in her cold bed, and the baby would have been chilled to death on her bosom. Why was the storm only for our Old Homestead, the sunshine for them?"
"Perhaps God will explain all this when we get to heaven," answered Mary, lifting her forehead in the gloomy light. "Come, uncle Nat—come in."
With gentle violence the girl drew him into the house.
From that night Mary Fuller ceased to be a child. The story of a woman's wrongs had given her a woman's heart.