While Salina was moving her head up and down, with a force that almost dislodged the horn-comb from her fiery tresses, a clap of thunder shook the house to its foundations, and sheets of lightning rushed athwart the windows.
"Nathan, where is my brother Nathan?" cried aunt Hannah, starting to her feet.
"No, it's of no use calling even him," persisted Salina, unmindful of both thunder and lightning. "The face of a man can't change me; you needn't call him, I tell you it's of no use, I'm flint."
"The old hemlock is in flames again!" cried aunt Hannah, rushing through the porch, "and Nathan's chair empty. Is this thunderbolt for him? Nathan! Nathan!"
By the light of the stricken hemlock, she saw her brother coming toward the porch, holding Mary Fuller by the hand.
"Come, brother, come!" she cried, stretching forth her arms, "you are all that I have left."
Nathan heard his sister, and came toward her. She saw that he was safe, and her old manner returned.
"Come," she said, opening the kitchen door, "it is time for prayers."
"Yes, let us pray," said uncle Nathan, solemnly, "for truly, God speaketh to us in the thunder and the lightning."
Salina, who had remained standing in the room, was so struck by the unusual sadness of every face around her, that for the time she forgot herself. There was something in uncle Nathan's face that she had never seen before, a depth and intensity of feeling that held even her rude strength in awe.