“It was—but you will laugh at me?”
“No, indeed, my sweet——”
“It was with a sort of presentiment that oppressed me,” said Drusilla, in a tone deepened with awe.
“A humming-bird is said to tremble before an approaching storm, though no cloud be in the sky. You are as sensitive as a humming-bird, my pet; do you tremble at an approaching storm?” smiled Alexander, gently caressing her.
For the first time in her life, she shrank from him, yet immediately wondered at and reproached herself for doing so.
“Come, my love, is it a good or evil presentiment that overawes you so?”
“I do not know even that much. I have felt all the evening as if something was hanging over me—I cannot tell what. Yes, the air is full of electricity,” she said, and stopped and shuddered.
“My child, superstitious people say that dreams and presentiments go by contraries. If you dream of a death, it is a sign of a wedding; if you have a foreboding of evil, it is a sign some good is about to happen to you.”
“But I do not know whether my foreboding is of good or evil,” she said, softly smiling.
“I will tell you, then, my darling. It is of both, since it foreshadows love and marriage, Drusilla,” he answered, gravely.