, I am bringing her home."

"Bringing her--oh, my God! Is she dead?"

"No, she is safe."

"My son, don't try to deceive me. What is the matter? You are
carrying something on a litter."

"Why do you not speak, Regina, and assure her of your safety?"

Mrs. Lindsay had groped her way to the side of her son, and put her
hand on the figure stretched upon the cushion.

"I only sprained my foot badly, and Mr. Lindsay was so good as to
bring me home this way."

"Have they got her?" shouted Hannah, who accompanied by Mr. Hargrove
had found it impossible to keep pace with Mrs. Lindsay.

"Oh, it is a corpse you are fetching home!" she added, with a genuine
wail, as in the gloom she dimly saw the outline of several persons.

"Nobody is dead, but we need a light. Run back and get a candle."

Thankful that life had been spared, no more questions were asked
until they reached the house, and deposited their burden on the
lounge in the dining-room.

Then Mr. Lindsay briefly explained what had occurred, and
superintended the anointing and binding up of the bruised ankle, now
much swollen.

As Hannah knelt, holding the foot in her broad palm, to enable Mrs.
Lindsay to wrap it in a linen cloth saturated with arnica, the former
bent her grey head and tenderly kissed the wounded member. She had
been absent for a few minutes during the recital of the accident, and
now asked:

"Where were you, that you could not get home before the storm? Heaven
knows that cloud grumbled and gave warning long enough."

"Hannah, she was in the church, and when she tried to get out, it was
too late."

"In the church! Why I was in the yard, trying to get a breath of air,
not twenty minutes before the cloud rolled up like a mountain of ink,
and I saw nobody."

Regina understood her nervous start, and the eager questioning of her
eyes.

"I was in the organ gallery, and, falling down the steps, I hurt
myself."

"Honey, did you see me?"

Her fingers closed so spasmodically over the girl's foot, that she
winced from the pressure.

"I saw you walking about the churchyard, and would have come home
with you, if I had thought the storm was so near. Please, Hannah,
bring me some cool water."

She pitied the old woman's evident confusion and anxiety, and
rejoiced when Mr. Hargrove changed the topic.

"I am very sorry, Douglass, that I cannot accompany you as far as New
York. When I promised this afternoon to do so, of course I did not
anticip