She stopped again. Mrs Ravenshaw, with placid face and closed eyes, had replied with another gentle “hush–sh!”
Descending once more, Miss Trim was met by a sudden stream, which had burst in the back door. Rushing again into the old lady’s bedroom, she cried vehemently, “Woman! won’t you get up?”
“Why should I?” asked the other in a sleepy tone. “Isn’t Samuel looking after it?”
“Of course he is, but—”
“Well, well,” interrupted the old lady, a little testily, “if he’s there it’s all right. He knows what to do, I don’t. Neither do you, Miss Trim; so pray go away and let me sleep.”
Poor Miss Trim retired discomfited. Afterwards when the family were driven to the upper storey of the dwelling she learned to regard things with something of Mrs Ravenshaw’s philosophy.
One morning at daylight there was a calm so profound that the sleepers at Willow Creek were not awakened until the sun rose in a cloudless sky and glittered over the new-born sea with ineffable splendour. It was a strange and sad though beautiful sight. Where these waters lay like a sheet of glass, spreading out to the scarce visible horizon, the grass-waves of the prairie had rolled in days gone by. There were still some knolls visible, some tops of trees and bushes, like islets on the sea, and one or two square masses of drift-wood floating slowly along with the now imperceptible current, like boats under full sail. Here and there could be seen several wooden houses and barns, some of which had come down from the upper parts of the settlement, like the hut of old Liz, and were stranded awkwardly on shoals, while others were still drifting over the watery waste.
All this was clearly visible from the windows of the upper room, in which slept the sisters Elsie and Cora, and presented itself to the former when she awoke like a vision of fairyland. Unable to believe her eyes, she rubbed them with her pretty little knuckles, and gazed again.
“How beautiful!” she exclaimed.
The exclamation awoke Cora, who sat up and yawned. Then she looked at her sister, and being only half-awake, smiled in an imbecile manner.