"I can't help it. I'm mad!" said he with emphasis. "What has got into this house and you all, anyhow?"
"What is it, Adrianna, poor child," asked her mother. "Only look what has happened here."
"It's an earthquake," said her father staunchly; "nothing to be afraid of."
"How do you account for THAT?" said Mrs. Townsend in an awful voice, pointing to the veil.
Adrianna did not look—she was too engrossed with her own terrors. She began to speak in a breathless voice.
"I—was—coming—by the vacant lot," she panted, "and—I—I—had my new hat in a paper bag and—a parcel of blue ribbon, and—I saw a crowd, an awful—oh! a whole crowd of people with white faces, as if—they were dressed all in black."
"Where are they now?"
"I don't know. Oh!" Adrianna sank gasping feebly into a chair.
"Get her some water, David," sobbed her mother.
David rushed with an impatient exclamation out of the room and returned with a glass of water which he held to his daughter's lips.