cloth. Mrs. Randolph explained that, although all danger was over, there
was the possibility of the recurrence of lighter shocks during the day
and night, and that they would all feel much more secure and comfortable
to camp out for the next twenty-four hours in the open air.

"Only imagine you're picnicking, and you'll enjoy it as most people
usually enjoy those horrid al fresco entertainments. I don't believe
there's the slightest real necessity for it, but," she added in a lower
voice, "the Irish and Chinese servants are so demoralized now, they
wouldn't stay indoors with us. It's a common practice here, I believe,
for a day or two after the shock, and it gives time to put things right
again and clear up. The old, one-storied, Spanish houses with walls
three feet thick, and built round a courtyard or patio, were much safer.
It's only when the Americans try to improve upon the old order of things
with their pinchbeck shams and stucco that Providence interferes like
this to punish them."

It was the fact, however, that Rose was more impressed by what seemed to
her the absolute indifference of Providence in the matter, and the cool
resumption by Nature of her ordinary conditions. The sky above their
heads was as rigidly blue as ever, and as smilingly monotonous; the
distant prospect, with its clear, well-known silhouettes, had not
changed; the crows swung on lazy, deliberate wings over the grain as
before; and the trade-wind was again blowing in its quiet persistency.
And yet she knew that something had happened that would never again make
her enjoyment of the prospect the same--that nothing would ever be as
it was yesterday. I think at first she referred only to the material and
larger phenomena, and did not confound this revelation of the insecurity
of the universe with her experience of man. Yet the fact also remained
that to the conservative, correct, and, as she believed, secure