thunder.

Then came Mrs. Nelly Northover to this unfamiliar scene, peeped in at a
door or two and failed to see Sarah, who laboured at the other end of
the Mill. But the hostess of 'The Seven Stars' knew Sabina Dinnett and
now shook hands with her and then stood and watched in bewildered
admiration before a big frame of a hundred spindles.

Sabina was spinning with a heart very full of happiness. On the previous
evening she had promised to wed Raymond Ironsyde, and her thoughts
to-day were winged with over-mastering joy. For life had turned into a
glorious triumph; the man who had asked her to marry him was not only a
gentleman, but far above the power of any wrong-doing. She knew in the
very secret places of her soul, that he could never act away from his
honest and noble character; that he was a knight above reproach,
incapable of wronging any living thing. There was an element of risk for
most girls who fell in love with those better born than themselves; but
none for her. Other men might deceive and abuse, and suffer outer
influences to chill their love, when the secret of it became known; but
not this man. His rare nature had been revealed to her; he desired the
welfare of all people; he was moved with nothing but the purest
principles and loftiest feeling. He would not willingly have brought
sorrow to a child. And she had won this unique spirit! He loved her with
the love that only such a man was great enough to show; and she echoed
it and knew that such a passion must be unchanging, everlasting, built
not only to make their united lives unspeakably happy and gloriously
content, but to run over also into the lives of others, less blessed,
and leave the sad world happier for their happiness. There was not a
cloud in the sky of her romance and she shared with him for the moment
the joy of secrecy. But that would not be long. They had determined to
hug their delicious knowledge for a little while and then proclaim the
great tidings to the world.

So she followed the old road, along which her sisters had tramped from
immemorial time, and would still tramp through the generations to come,
when her journey was ended and the wonderful country of man's love
explored--its oases visited, its antres endured.

Now Sabina played priestess to the Spinning Machine--a monster reared
above her, stupendous and insatiable.

Along the summit of the Spinning Frame, just within reach of tall
Sabina's uplifted hand, there perched