itary reformer to the Emperor be truly reported),
"fair without but foul within."

However, the wind is blowing dull and hollow from south-west; the
clouds are rolling faster and faster up from the Atlantic; the sky to
westward is brassy green; the glass is falling fast; and there will
be wind and rain enough to-night to sweep even Aberalva clean for the
next week.

Grace Harvey sees the coming storm, as she goes slowly homewards,
dismissing her little flock; and she lingers long and sadly outside
her cottage door, looking out over the fast blackening sea, and
listening to the hollow thunder of the groundswell, against the back
of the point which shelters Aberalva Cove.

Far away on the horizon, the masts of stately ships stand out against
the sky, driving fast to the eastward with shortened sail. They, too,
know what is coming; and Grace prays for them as she stands, in her
wild way, with half outspoken words.

"All those gallant ships, dear Lord! and so many beautiful men in
them, and so few of them ready to die; and all those gallant soldiers
going to the war;--Lord, wilt thou not have mercy? Spare them for
a little time before--. Is not that cruel, man-devouring sea full
enough, Lord; and brave men's bones enough, strewn up and down all
rocks and sands? And is not that dark place full enough, O Lord, of
poor souls cut off in a moment, as my two were? Oh, not to-night, dear
Lord! Do not call any one to-night--give them a day more, one chance
more, poor fellows--they have had so few, and so many temptations,
and, perhaps, no schooling. They go to sea so early, and young things
will be young things, Lord. Spare them but one night more--and yet He
did not spare my two--they had no time to repent, and have no time for
ever, evermore!"

And she stands looking out over the sea; but she has lost sight of
everything, save her own sad imaginations. Her eyes open wider and
wider, as if before some unseen horror; the eyebrows contract upwards;
the cheeks sharpen; the mouth parts; the lips draw back, showing
the white teeth, as if in intensest agony. Thus she stands long,
motionless, awe-frozen, save when a shudder runs through every limb,
with such a countenance as that "fair terror" of which Shelley sang--

"Its horror and its beauty are divine;
Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lie
Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine,
Fiery and lucid, struggling underneath,
The agonies of anguish and of death."

He