the lightning. She had her bedstead wheeled into a corner of the room,
and with the heavy curtains drawn tightly round her, she lay with her
face buried in the pillow, shuddering convulsively at every sound of the
tempest without. Sir Michael, whose stout heart had never known a fear,
almost trembled for this fragile creature, whom it was his happy
privilege to protect and defend. My lady would not consent to undress
till nearly three o'clock in the morning, when the last lingering peal
of thunder had died away among the distant hills. Until that hour she
lay in the handsome silk dress in which she had traveled, huddled
together among the bedclothes, only looking up now and then with a
scared face to ask if the storm was over.

Toward four o'clock her husband, who spent the night in watching by her
bedside, saw her drop off into a deep sleep, from which she did not
awake for nearly five hours.

But she came into the breakfast-room, at half-past nine o'clock, singing
a little Scotch melody, her cheeks tinged with as delicate a pink as the
pale hue of her muslin morning dress. Like the birds and the flowers,
she seemed to recover her beauty and joyousness in the morning sunshine.
She tripped lightly out onto the lawn, gathering a last lingering
rosebud here and there, and a sprig or two of geranium, and returning
through the dewy grass, warbling long cadences for very happiness of
heart, and looking as fresh and radiant as the flowers in her hands. The
baronet caught her in his strong arms as she came in through the open
window.

"My pretty one," he said, "my darling, what happiness to see you your
own merry self again! Do you know, Lucy, that once last night, when you
looked out through the dark-green bed-curtains, with your poor, white