e."

"My wife will die of terror if she hears but a whisper of the
distemper being anigh us," remarked the Master Builder, with a sigh
and a look of uneasiness. "But men are always scaring us with tales
of its coming and, after all, there is but a death here and one
there, such as any great city may look to have."

At that moment the door was thrown open, and a pretty young damsel,
wearing a crimson cloak and hood, stepped lightly in.

"O father, mother, do but come and look!" she cried, with the air
of coaxing assurance which bespoke a favoured child. "Such a
strange star in the sky! Men in the streets are all looking and
pointing; and some say that it is no star, but a comet, and that it
predicts some dreadful thing which is coming upon this land. Do
come and look at it! There is a clear sky tonight, and one can see
it well. And I heard that it has been seen by some before this,
when at night the rain clouds have been swept away by the wind. Do
come to the window above the river and look! One can see it fine
from there."

This sudden announcement, falling just upon the talk of pestilence
and peril, caused a certain flutter and sensation through the room.
All the persons there rose to their feet and followed the
rosy-cheeked maiden out upon the staircase, and to a window from
which the great river could be seen flowing beneath. A large
expanse of sky could also be commanded from here, and as the inside
of the house was almost dark, it was easy to obtain an excellent
view of the strange appearance which was attracting so much
attention in the streets.

It certainly was no star that was glowing thus with a red and
sullen-looking flame. Neither shape nor position in the heavens
accorded with that of any star of magnitude.

"It was certainly," so said Reuben Harmer, who had some knowledge
of the heavenly bodies, "no star, but one of those travelling
meteors or comets which are seen from time to time, and which from
remote ages have been declared to foretell calamity to the lands
over which they appear to travel."

The Harmer family were godly people of somewhat Puritanic leaning,
yet they were by no means entirely free from the superstition of
their times, nor would Rachel have called it superstition to regard
this manifestation as a warning from God. Why should He not send
some such messenger before He proceeded to take vengeance upon an
ungodly city? Was not even guilty Sodom warned of its approaching
doom?