p--my instincts
were all awake and beginning to warn me, and I murmured softly a prayer
to that strong, invisible majestic spirit which I knew must be near
me--my guardian Angel. I was answered instantly--my foreboding grew
into a positive certainty that some danger menaced Heliobas, and that
if I desired to be his friend, I must be prepared for an emergency.
Receiving this, as all such impressions should be received, as a direct
message sent me for my guidance, I grew calmer, and braced up my
energies to oppose SOMETHING, though I knew not what.

Zara was showing her lady-visitors a large album of Italian
photographs, and explaining them as she turned the leaves. As I entered
the room, she said eagerly to me:

"Play to us, dear! Something soft and plaintive. We all delight in your
music, you know."

"Did you hear the thunder just now?" I asked irrelevantly.

"It WAS thunder? I thought so!" said Mrs. Everard. "Oh, I do hope there
is not going to be a storm! I am so afraid of a storm!"

"You are nervous?" questioned Zara kindly, as she engaged her attention
with some very fine specimens among the photographs, consisting of
views from Venice.

"Well, I suppose I am," returned Amy, half laughing. "Yet I am plucky
about most things, too. Still I don't like to hear the elements
quarrelling together--they are too much in earnest about it--and no
person can pacify them."

Zara smiled, and gently repeated her request to me for some music--a
request in which Mrs. Challoner and her daughters eagerly joined. As I
went to the piano I thought of Edgar Allan Poe's exquisite poem:

"In Heaven a spirit doth dwell,
Whose heart-strings are a lute;
None sing so wildly well
As the angel Israfel,
And the giddy stars, so legends tell,
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice--all mute."

As I poised my fingers above the keys of the instrument, another long,
low, ominous roll of thunder swept up from the distance and made the
room tremble.

"Play--play, for goodness' sake!" exclaimed Mrs. Everard; "and then we
shall not be obliged to fix our attention on the approaching storm!"

I played a few soft opening arpeggio passages, while Zara seated
herself in an easy-chair near the window, and the other ladies arranged
themselves on sofas and ottomans to their satisfaction. The room was
exceedingly close: and the scent of the flowers that were placed about
in profusion was almost too sweet and overpowe