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beauty and sweetness give value. Thou art an excellent gardener, Violet; things thrive with thee wonderfully, even as if they were conscious whose flowers they are, and were proud of it.

Ah! that were no cause for pride. Methinks, if they were conscious whose flowers they are, they would droop their heads and wither away.

Say not so: thou art melancholy; the storm has affected thy spirits. Those who were abroad in it say that the lightning was tremendous.

It was tremendous.

And the rolling of the thunder was awful.

It was awful.

And the moor was at times one blaze of fiery light, like returning bursts of mid-day, giving every thing to view for an instant in the depth of midnight darkness. (A pause.) One who was there told me so. (Another pause, and she seems uneasy.) And more than that, a strange unlikely story. (A still longer pause, and she more uneasy.) But thou hast no desire to hear