“I feel as though listening to the voice of God coming from yonder storm-cloud,� she said. “How responsive is all nature to the ominous warning there. Even the trees seem to be holding their breaths and waiting for the presence to pass by. Notice how different is the quiver of the leaflets now from their usual merry, rollicking dance in the wind and sunshine at other times.�
“I suppose the atmosphere is more dense and heavy,� said Mrs. Wylie, determined not to be betrayed into sentimentality.
“I like to think they understand the portent of the thunder and are afraid,� replied the other. “They are saying their prayers now, and asking that they may survive the blows and buffeting of the coming tempest. Hear the sparrows chirp to call their families together. To me there is no time so grand, so inspiring as this.�
“But if you were in the West, where cyclones are common, what would you feel?� asked the practical Mrs. Wylie.
“Fear, terror, and trembling like the leaves, no doubt,� replied Mrs. Lucien. “The anger and fury expressed in a tornado must be dreadful. I shudder at the thought of it. But after the wind comes a still small voice. Ah, how can people who live and breathe the beneficent air of heaven, who witness the wonderful phenomena of nature, say or believe there is no grand, marvelous unity controlling it all? Truly, it is the fool who sayeth in his heart, there is no God.
“We can feel His wonderful love and care in the beautiful earth and flowers about us, can perceive His righteous law in the retributive justice of all nature, and His might and omnipotence in the thunder-storm and cyclone. Ah, it is a wonderful thing to live, to know that in a little while we shall have crossed to the other side, beyond time and eternity. And then we may see and know the Law-giver, this Almighty One, who carries worlds in his hands, yet deigns to note a sparrow’s fall.�
“Yes,� assented Mrs. Wylie, “it is a wonderful thing to live.� But she sighed. She could not forget the scene that presented itself to her eyes earlier in the morning, and she bade her friend good-by abstractedly, and passed out into the hurrying world upon the street, her mind heavy and oppressed.
CHAPTER XIII
A DOMESTIC JAR
Mrs. Wylie went back to her home in a very dissatisfied frame of mind. She mentally scourged herself for having been instrumental in bringing Mrs. Lucien under Dr. Lyman’s influence. The whole subject was distasteful to her and she resolved to keep away from Mrs. Lucien as much as possible in the future. She could not rest, however, until she had unburdened herself to her husband.
“Horace, I am very sorry we ever met Mrs. Lucien,� she said that evening as they sat in the quiet of their parlor at the hotel.