to be left alone here in this dissolute place, with a dying
'oman, and she my own dear nurse child," she whined, wringing and
twisting her fingers, and looking from the face of the sleeping babe to
that of the unconscious mother.

"Oh, to think of my own dear father a-dying at a distance, and I never
to see him alive no more in this world!" she burst forth, sobbing and
crying.

"And oh, good Lord in heaven, what an awful night! I never did see sich
a night in my life, with the rain pouring and pouring barrels full in a
stream, and the river roaring around the house like a whole drove of
lions!" she exclaimed, shuddering from head to foot.

"And an endless night as it is, oh, my goodness! But it must be near
morning; I do think it must be near morning," she finally said, as she
arose and laid the baby on the bed beside its mother, and then went to
the window to look out for the dawn.

She started back with a cry of terror, and sank upon the nearest seat.

The cell, as I told you, was in the angle of the building, and had two
windows--the one looking down upon Black River, and the other upon Bird
Creek. Miss Tabby had peeped from that one which overlooked Bird Creek.

Day had dawned darkly and dimly, but the solitary woman saw enough to
curdle her blood with horror.

The river and the creek, lashed to fury, had swollen so high that they
were now merged into one body of water, and had risen nearly to the
second story of the building. If Miss Tabby could have put her arm
through the grated window, she might easily have reached down and dipped
her hand in the rising water, for it was rising so fast that she could
almost see it mount.

"Oh, my good gracious alive!" she cried, as she fell back on the
chair--"it's a flood! It's a flood like that I heard mother talk about,
which carried away the mills in ninety. It's a flood! it's a flood! And
we shall all be drownded in this horrid cell, like blind kittens in a
tub!"

And made desperate by terror, the old woman started up, and rushed to
the barred and bolted door of the cell, and rapped and kicked with all
her might, and threw herself against it, and called, loudly and
frantically:

"HELP! MURDER! MURDER! HELP! Take us out, or we'll all be drownded in
ten minutes!"

But bolts and bars resisted all her strength, and the noise of winds and
waters drowned her voice. And the same cause that rendered others deaf
to her frenzied cries for help, prevented her from hearin