"To-morrow is an uncertain day, and how knowest thou if thou shalt have to-morrow?"
"No wonder his mind is sober and solemn, with such reading as this," mused Juliet, but she continued.
Fire bells commenced to ring. Was this so uncommon an occurrence as to cause Juliet to drop her book and press her hand to her heart?
"What does it mean? I am so fearfully nervous. It is not our house that is on fire."
She walked to a window; ah, the fire was near, but a few squares distant; the slight wind, however, would bear it in an opposite direction. There was no occasion for fear. Juliet took up her book again, and read a few pages. She was reading these passages a second time, and with something like a thrill of awe, for they seemed to be spoken to herself:
"Be therefore always in readiness, and so live that death may never find thee unprepared.
"Many die suddenly and unprovidedly; for the Son of Man will come at the hour when He is not looked for.
"When that last hour shall have come, then thou wilt begin to think far otherwise of all thy past life; and great will be thy grief that thou hast been so neglectful and remiss."
The door-bell rang violently. Juliet made an effort to rise from her chair, but sank back weak as an infant. Her face turned deadly pale, and she clenched the closed book in her pallid hands.
There was a confused sound in the room below; the tread of men and subdued voices. Suddenly, above these, she caught a groan. This broke the spell; she flew rather than walked to the small parlor so strangely occupied.