It was the time when we had finished our tea, or supper--I hardly know which to call it. In the silence, we could hear the rain pouring against the window, and the wind that had risen with the darkness howling round the house. My sister Judith, taking the gloomy view according to custom--copious draughts of good Bohea and two helpings of such a mutton ham as only Scotland can produce had no effect in raising her spirits--my sister, I say, remarked that there would be ships lost at sea and men drowned this night. My daughter Felicia, the brightest-tempered creature of the female sex that I have ever met with, tried to give a cheerful turn to her aunt's depressing prognostication. "If the ships must be lost," she said, "we may surely hope that the men will be saved." "God willing," I put in--thereby giving to my daughter's humane expression of feeling the fit religious tone that was all it wanted--and then went on with my written record of the events and reflections of the day. No more was said.
Felicia took up a book. Judith took up her knitting.
On a sudden, the silence was broken by a blow on the house-door.
