"No, but"--hesitated the young girl, with a certain mouse-like
audacity,--"when you sent me to look after Miss Mallory, I came up to
him just after he had spoken to her, and he stopped to ask me how we all
were, and if Miss Mallory was really frightened by the earthquake, and
he shook hands for good afternoon--that's all."

"And who taught you to converse with common strangers and shake hands
with them?" continued Mrs. Randolph, with narrowing lips.

"Nobody, mamma; but I thought if Miss Mallory, who is a young lady,
could speak to him, so could I, who am not out yet."

"We won't discuss this any further at present," said Mrs. Randolph,
stiffly, as the major smiled grimly at Rose. "The earthquake seems to
have shaken down in this house more than the chimneys."

It certainly had shaken all power of sleep from the eyes of Rose when
the household at last dispersed to lie down in their clothes on
the mattresses which had been arranged under the awnings. She was
continually starting up from confused dreams of the ground shaking under
her, or she seemed to be standing on the brink of some dreadful abyss
like the great chasm on the grain-field, when it began to tremble and
crumble beneath her feet. It was near morning when, unable to endure
it any longer, she managed without disturbing the sleeping Adele,
who occupied the same curtained recess with her, to slip out from
the awning. Wrapped in a thick shawl, she made her way through the
encompassing trees and bushes of the garden that had seemed to imprison
and suffocate her, to the edge of the grain-field, where she could
breathe the fresh air beneath an open, starlit sky. There was no moon
and the darkness favored her; she had no fears that weighed against the