Caroline ducked beneath the coverings and hugged Mildred tight in her arms. A second crash shook the bed beneath her—a second burst of flaming light searched her out, even beneath the sheet and the soft blanket. She thought she was going to die with terror, when she heard a little faint click, and a voice spoke right above her:
“Jacqueline! It’s I—Cousin Penelope. Don’t be frightened!”
Hesitatingly, Caroline put aside the coverings and sat up. The light on the little table at her bedside had been switched on, and in the shaded brightness stood Cousin Penelope. She wore a silk dressing-gown of pale lavender, embroidered with clusters of purple wistaria. Her hair hung in a long braid at either side of her pale face. She looked gentler than ever Caroline had known her or dreamed that she could be. When she smiled, Caroline smiled back.
“Mildred was a little frightened,” said Caroline. “I’m glad you came in, Cousin Penelope. Will you stay—or does Aunt Eunice want you?”
“Mother has lived through so many tempests that she doesn’t mind them now,” said Cousin Penelope. She drew up the low rocker and sat down. “I don’t think they can be worse than your California earthquakes.”
My conscience! How Jacqueline would have resented the suggestion that there were ever earthquakes in California! But Caroline was too ignorant of the proper attitude of a Native Daughter to be indignant. She only held Mildred tighter and gasped a little, as the room once more was irradiated with white and awesome light. She looked gratefully at Cousin Penelope.
“I don’t mind it much,” she quavered, “now that you are here. It—it does make you think of poetry, doesn’t it?
“’The heavens are veined with fire,
And the thunder—how it rolls!
In the lulling of the storm——’”