is hand. The day of mercy had gone by; the day of vengeance
had come--the day of reckoning and of punishment. The innocent must
now perish with the guilty, and he warned each one of his hearers
to prepare to meet his Judge.

The man was gazing up overhead with eyes that seemed ready to start
from their sockets. Every face in the crowd grew pale with horror.
The man seemed rooted to the spot with a ghastly terror. They
followed the direction of his gaze, but could see nothing save the
quivering sunshine above them.

Suddenly one in the crowd gave a shriek which those who heard it
never forgot, and fell to the ground like one dead.

With a wild, terrible laugh the preacher gathered up his long gown
and fled onwards, and the crowd scattered helter skelter, terrified
and desperate. None seemed to have a thought for the miserable man
smitten down before their very eyes. All took care to avoid
approaching him in their hasty flight. He lay with his face
upturned to the steely, pitiless summer sky. A woman coming
furtively along with a market basket upon her arm suddenly set up a
dolorous cry at sight of him, and setting down her basket ran
towards him, the tears streaming down her face.

"Why, it is none other than good John Harwood and his wife
Elizabeth!" cried Janet, making a forward step. "Oh, poor
creatures, poor creatures! Good aunt, prithee let us do what we can
for their relief. I knew not the man, his face was so changed, but
I know him now. They are very honest, good folks, and have worked
for us ere now. They live hard by, if so be they have not changed
their lodgings. Can we do nothing to help them?"

"We will do what we can," said Dinah. "Remember, my children, all
that I have bidden you do when approaching a stricken person. Be
not rash, neither be over-much affrighted. The Lord has preserved
me, and methinks He will preserve you, too."

With that she stepped forward and laid a hand upon the shoulder of
the poor woman, who was weeping copiously over her husband, and
calling him by every name she could think of, though he lay rigid
with half-open eyes and heeded her not.

"Good friend," said Dinah, in her quiet, commanding fashion, "it is
of no avail thus to weep and cry. We must get your goodman within
doors, and tend him there. See, there is a man with a handcart over
yonder. Go call him, and bid him come to our help. We must not let
your goodman lie out here in the streets in this hot sunshine."

"Go