"Ah! but it will—I see it all now as plain as a book. I said only last night that things were coming round nicely for us all. And they are—they are!"
Harriet began to cry, and to beg Mattie to desist. For an instant the sanguine assertion sounded like a vain prophecy, and jarred strangely on her nerves, bringing forth tears and heavy sobs, and a fear of that future which stretched forth radiantly beyond to Mattie's vision. After all, Harriet was but a girl, and had not thought very deeply of all that the contract implied between Sidney and herself. And after all, were things coming round nicely?—or was the red glow in the sky lurid and threatening to her, and more than her?
This is scarcely a quiet story, and we are not through our first volume. What does the astute novel-reader think?