view of the strange appearance which was attracting so much
attention in the streets.

It certainly was no star that was glowing thus with a red and
sullen-looking flame. Neither shape nor position in the heavens
accorded with that of any star of magnitude.

"It was certainly," so said Reuben Harmer, who had some knowledge
of the heavenly bodies, "no star, but one of those travelling
meteors or comets which are seen from time to time, and which from
remote ages have been declared to foretell calamity to the lands
over which they appear to travel."

The Harmer family were godly people of somewhat Puritanic leaning,
yet they were by no means entirely free from the superstition of
their times, nor would Rachel have called it superstition to regard
this manifestation as a warning from God. Why should He not send
some such messenger before He proceeded to take vengeance upon an
ungodly city? Was not even guilty Sodom warned of its approaching
doom?

All faces then were grave, but that of the Master Builder wore a
look of fear as well.

"I must to my wife," he said. "If she sees this comet, she will be
vastly put about. I must to her side to reassure her. Pray Heaven
that no calamity be near to us!"

"Amen!" replied Harmer, gravely; and then the Master Builder
retreated down the staircase, whilst from a room below a cheerful