Bonny Jean, and A Severe Threat — page 154: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A SEVERE THREAT. 147 miles from Waltham! I did not think that the storm would burst so soon, and I coudd not stay away from mamma. So I left old Zingra, and came alone. I have a strange presentiment that something is wrong. Perhaps she is ill. How still every- thing is in the house !” The girl rapped loudly upon the door of the cottage. But there was no response. Again and again she rapped. There was a momentary lull in the storm outside, and for a short time everything was so quiet that she could hear the sonorous tick, tick of the clock on the mantel inside. : ‘‘Something zs wrong !” she exclaimed, aloud, and, throw- ing her weight against the cottage door, she attempted to push it open. To her surprise, it yielded readily, and Stella Gor- don’s daughter staggered across the threshold, half wild with nameless horror, and a dread of she knew not what. The lamp burned low upon the table, and there was a strange, sulphurous odor in the room ; but at first she did not perceive its silent occupant. | She took one step, and then she paused aghast, while a low cry issued from her pallid lips. For a flash of blazing light- ning flew over the sky, and illumined the interior of the room with a gleam beside which the lamp-light was pale and worth- less, and it disclosed the prostrate figure on the floor. One bound and Lola Gordon was at her mother’s side, her arms about her, the dusky head pillowed upon her breast. ‘* Mother! oh, mother!” she moaned, ‘‘ what is the matter? Speak, mother! Are you ill?” | Still, no reply. The girl sprang to her feet, and turned the flame of the lamp higher. It shone athwart the pale, set, rigid features of the woman at her feet; a great blue, livid streak across the brow, which showed the path which the lightning had taken. | | ‘«She is hurt !” panted Lola, tearing open the plain black dress ; ‘‘she has been struck by the lightning—she th The girl paused, with the word frozen upon her lips; for her Gomichooks (E(@)