University of Virginia Library

33. CHAPTER XXXIII.
STORM AND CONVULSION.

What did Margaret Cooper dream of? Disappointment,
misery, death. There was a stern presentiment in her
waking thoughts, sufficiently keen and agonizing to inspire
such dreadful apprehensions in her dreams. The temperament
which is sanguine, and which, in a lively mood, inspires
hope, is, at the same time, the source of those dark
images of thought and feeling, which appal it with the most
terrifying forms of fear; and when Saturday and Saturday
night came and passed, and Alfred Stevens did not appear,
a lurking dread that would not be chidden or kept down,
continued to rise within her soul, which, without assuming
any real form or decisive speech, was yet suggestive of complete
overthrow and ruin.

Her dreams were of this complexion. She felt herself
abandoned. Nor merely abandoned. She was a victim.
In her desolation she had even lost her pride. She could
no longer meet the sneer with scorn. She could no longer
carry a lofty brow among the little circle, who, once having
envied, were now about to despise her. To the impatient
spirit, once so strong — so insolent in its strength —
what a pang — what a humiliation was here! In her
dreams she saw the young maidens of the village stand
aloof, as she had once stood aloof from them: — she heard
the senseless titter of their laugh; and she had no courage
to resent the impertinence. Her courage was buried in

her shame. No heart is so cowardly as that which is conscious
of guilt. Picture after picture of this sort did her
fancy present to her that night; and when she awoke the
next morning, the sadness of her soul had taken the color
of a deep and brooding misanthropy. Such had been the
effect of her dreams. Her resolution came only from despair;
and resolution from such a source, we well know, is
usually only powerful against itself.

It is one proof of a religious instinct, and of a universal
belief in a controlling and benevolent Deity, that all men
however abased, scornful of divine and human law, invariably,
in their moments of desperation, call upon God.
Their first appeal is, involuntarily, to him. The outlaw,
as the fatal bullet pierces his breast — the infidel, sinking
and struggling in the water — the cold stony heart of the
murderer, the miser, the assassin of reputation as of life —
all cry out upon God in the unexpected paroxysms of death.
Let us hope that the instinct which prompts this involuntary
appeal for mercy, somewhat helps to secure its blessings.
It is thus also with one who, in the hey-day of the
youthful heart, has lived without thought or prayer — a
tumultuous life of uproar and riot — a long carnival of the
passions — the warm blood suppressing the cool thought,
and making the reckless heart impatient of consideration.
Let the sudden emergency arise, with such a heart — let
the blood become stagnant with disease — and the involuntary
appeal is to that God, of whom before there was no
thought. We turn to him as to a father who is equally
strong to help and glad to preserve us.

Margaret Cooper, in the ordinary phrase, had lived without
God. Her God was in her own heart, beheld by the
lurid fires of an intense, unmethodized ambition. Her own
strength — or rather the persuasion of her own strength —
had been so great, that hitherto she had seen no necessity
for appealing to any other source of power. She might
now well begin to distrust that strength. She did so. Her

desperation was not of that sort utterly to shut out hope;
and, while there is hope, there is yet a moral assurance that
the worst is not yet — perhaps not to be. But she was
humbled — not enough, perhaps — but enough to feel the
necessity of calling in her allies. She dropped by her bedside,
in prayer, when she arose that morning. We do not
say that she prayed for forgiveness, without reference to
her future earthly desires. Few of us know how to simplify
our demands upon the Deity to this one. We pray
that he may assist us in this or that grand speculation: the
planter for a great crop; the banker for investments that
give him fifty per cent.; the lawyer for more copious fees;
the parson for an increase of salary. How few pray for
mercy — forgiveness for the past — strength to sustain the
struggling conscience in the future! Poor Margaret was
no wiser, no better, than the rest of us. She prayed —
silly woman! — that Alfred Stevens might keep his engagement!

He did not! That day she was to be married! She
had some reference to this in making her toilet that morning.
The garments which she put on were all of white.
A white rose gleamed palely from amid the raven hair upon
her brow. Beautiful was she, exceedingly. How beautiful!
but alas! the garb she wore — the pale, sweet flower
on her forehead — they were mockeries — the emblems of
that purity of soul, that innocence of heart, which were
gone — gone for ever! She shuddered as she beheld the
flower, and meditated this thought. Silently she took the
flower from her forehead, and, as if it were precious as that
lost jewel of which it reminded her, she carefully placed it
away in her toilet-case.

Yet her beauty was heightened rather than diminished.
Margaret Cooper was beautiful after no ordinary mould.
Tall in stature, with a frame rounded by the most natural
proportions into symmetry, and so formed for grace; with
a power of muscle more than common among women, which,

by inducing activity, made her movements as easy as they
were graceful; with an eye bright like the morning-star,
and with a depth of expression darkly clear, like that of
the same golden orb at night; with a face exquisitely oval;
a mouth of great sweetness; cheeks on which the slightest
dash of hue from the red, red rose in June, might be seen
to come and go under the slightest promptings of the active
heart within; a brow of great height and corresponding
expansion; with a bust that impressed you with a sense of
the maternal strength which might be harbored there, even
as the swollen bud gives promises of the full-bosomed luxuriance
of the flower when it opens: add to these a lofty
carriage, a look where the quickened spirit seems ever
ready for utterance; a something of eager solemnity in her
speech; and a play of expression on her lips which, if the
brow were less lofty and the eye less keenly bright, might
be a smile — and you have some idea of that noble and
lovely temple on which fires of lava had been raised by an
unholy hand; in which a secret worship is carried on which
dreads the light, shrinks from exposure, and trembles to be
seen by the very Deity whose favor it yet seeks in prayer
and apprehension.

These beauties of person as we have essayed, though
most feebly, to describe them, were enhanced rather than lessened
by that air of anxiety by which they were now overcast.
Her step was no longer free. It was marked by an
unwonted timidity. Her glance was no longer confident;
and when she looked round upon the faces of the young
village-maidens, it was seen that her lip trembled and
moved, but no longer with scorn. If the truth were told,
she now envied the meanest of those maidens that security
which her lack of beauty had guarantied. She, the scorner
of all around her, now envied the innocence of the very
meanest of her companions.

Such was the natural effect of her unhappy experience

upon her heart. What would she not have given to be like
one of them? She dared not take her place, in the church,
among them. It was a dread that kept her back. Strange,
wondrous power of innocence! The guilty girl felt that she
might be repulsed; that her frailty might make itself known
— must make itself known; and she would be driven with
shame from that communion with the pure to which she had
no longer any claim! She sunk into one of the humblest
seats in the church, drawing her reluctant mother into the
lowly place beside her.

John Cross did not that day address himself to her case:
but sin has a family similitude among all its members.
There is an unmistakeable likeness, which runs through the
connection. If the preacher speaks fervently to one sin, he
is very apt to goad, in some degree, all the rest: and though
Brother Cross had not the most distant idea of singling out
Margaret Cooper for his censure, yet there was a whispering
devil at her elbow that kept up a continual commentary
upon what he said, filling her ears with a direct application
of every syllable to her own peculiar instance.

“See you not,” said the demon, “that every eye is turned
upon you? He sees into your soul; he knows your secret.
He declares it, as you hear, aloud, with a voice of thunder,
to all the congregation. Do you not perceive that you sit
alone; that everybody shrinks from your side; that your
miserable old mother alone sits with you; that the eyes of
some watch you with pity, but more with indignation? Look
at the young damsels — late your companions — they are
your companions no longer! They triumph in your shame.
Their titter is only suppressed because of the place in which
they are. They ask: `Is this the maiden who was so wise,
so strong — who scorned us — scorned us, indeed! — and
was not able to baffle the serpent in his very first approaches?'
Ha! ha! How they laugh! Well, indeed, they
may. It is very laughable, Margaret — not less laughable
and amusing than strange! — that you should have fallen!

— so easily, so blindly — and not even to suspect what every
one else was sure of! O Margaret! Margaret! can it
be true? Who will believe in your wit now, your genius,
your beauty? Smutched and smutted! Poor, weak, degraded!
If there is pity for you, Margaret, it is full of
mockery too; it is a pity that is full of bitterness. You
should now cast yourself down, and cover yourself with
ashes, and cry, `Wo is me!' and call upon the rocks and
the hills to cover you!”

Such was the voice in her soul, which to her senses
seemed like that of some jibing demon at her elbow. Margaret
tried to pray — to expel him by prayer; but the
object of his mockery had not been attained. She could
not surrender herself entirely to the chastener. She was
scourged, but not humbled; and the language of the demon
provoked defiance, not humility. Her proud spirit rose
once more against the pressure put upon it. Her bright,
dazzling eye flashed in scorn upon the damsels whom she
now fancied to be actually tittering — scarcely able to suppress
their laughter — at her obvious disgrace. On John
Cross she fixed her fearless eye, like that of some fallen
angel, still braving the chastener, whom he can not contend
with. A strange strength — for even sin has its strength
for a season — came to her relief in that moment of fiendish
mockery. The strength of an evil spirit was accorded
her. Her heart once more swelled with pride. Her soul
once more insisted on its ascendency. She felt, though she
did not say:—

“Even as I am, overthrown, robbed of my treasure, I
feel that I am superior to these. I feel that I have strength
against the future. If they are pure and innocent, it is not
because of their greater strength, but their greater obscurity.
If I am overthrown by the tempter, it was because I
was the more worthy object of overthrow. In their littleness
they live: if I am doomed to the shaft, at least it will
be as the eagle is doomed; it will be while soaring aloft —

while aiming for the sun — while grasping at the very bolt
by which I am destroyed!”

Such was the consolation offered by the twin-demons of
pride and vanity. The latter finds its aliment in the heart
which it too completely occupies, even from those circumstances
which, in other eyes, make its disgrace and weakness.
The sermon which had touched her sin had not subdued
it. Perhaps no sermon, no appeal, however powerful
and touching, could at that moment have had power over
her. The paroxysm of her first consciousness of ruin had
not yet passed off. The condition of mind was not yet
reached in which an appeal could be felt.

As in the case of physical disease, so with that of the
mind and heart, there is a period when it is neither useful
nor prudent to administer the medicines which are yet most
necessary to safety. The judicious physician will wait for
the moment when the frame is prepared — when the pulse
is somewhat subdued — before he tries the most powerful
remedy. The excitement of the wrong which she had suffered
was still great in her bosom. It was necessary that
she should have repose. That excitement was maintained
by the expectation that Stevens would yet make his appearance.
Her eye, at intervals, wandered over the assembly in
search of him. The demon at her elbow understood her quest.

“He will not come,” it said; “you look in vain. The
girls follow your eyes; they behold your disappointment;
they laugh at your credulity. If he leads any to the altar,
think you it will be one whom he could command at pleasure
without any such conditions — one who, in her wild passions
and disordered vanity, could so readily yield to his
desires, without demanding any corresponding sacrifices?
Margaret, they laugh now at those weaknesses of a mind
which they once feared if not honored. They wonder, now,
that they could have been so deceived. If they do not
laugh aloud, Margaret, it is because they would spare your
shame. Indeed, indeed, they pity you!”

The head of the desperate, but still haughty woman, was
now more proudly uplifted, and her eyes shot forth yet
fiercer fires of indignation. What a conflict was going on
in her bosom. Her cheeks glowed with the strife — her
breast heaved; with difficulty she maintained her seat inflexibly,
and continued, without other signs of discomposure,
until the service was concluded. Her step was more
stately than ever as she walked from church; and while
her mother lingered behind to talk with Brother Cross, and
to exchange the sweetest speeches with the widow Thackeray
and others, she went on alone — seeing none, heeding
none — dreading to meet any face lest it should wear a
smile and look the language in which the demon at her
side still dealt. He still clung to her, with the tenacity of
a fiendish purpose. He mocked her with her shame, goading
her, with dart upon dart, of every sort of mockery.
Truly did he mutter in her ears:—

“Stevens has abandoned you. Never was child, before
yourself, so silly as to believe such a promise as he made
you. Do you doubt? — do you still hope? It is madness?
Why came he not yesterday — last night — to-day? He is
gone. He has abandoned you. You are not only alone —
you are lost! lost for ever!”

The tidings of this unsolicited attendant were confirmed
the next day, by the unsuspecting John Cross. He came
to visit Mrs. Cooper and her daughter among the first of
his parishioners. He had gathered from the villagers
already that Stevens had certainly favored Miss Cooper
beyond all the rest of the village damsels. Indeed, it was
now generally bruited that he was engaged to her in marriage.
Though the worthy preacher had very stoutly resisted
the suggestions of Mr. Calvert, and the story of Ned
Hinkley, he was yet a little annoyed by them; and he
fancied that, if Stevens were, indeed, engaged to Margaret,
she, or perhaps the old lady, might relieve his anxiety by
accounting for the absence of his protégé. The notion of

Brother John was, that, having resolved to marry the
maiden, he had naturally gone home to apprize his parents
and to make the necessary preparations.

But this conjecture brought with it a new anxiety. It
now, for the first time, seemed something strange that
Stevens had never declared to himself, or to anybody else
who his parents were — what they were — where they were
— what business they pursued; or anything about them.
Of his friends, they knew as little. The simple old man
had never thought of these things, until the propriety of
such inquiries was forced upon him by the conviction that
they would now be made in vain. The inability to answer
them, when it was necessary that an answer should be
found, was a commentary upon his imprudence which
startled the good old man not a little. But, in the confident
hope that a solution of the difficulty could be afforded
by the sweetheart or the mother, he proceeded to her cottage.
Of course, Calvert, in his communication to him,
had forborne those darker conjectures which he could not
help but entertain; and his simple auditor, unconscious
himself of any thought of evil, had never himself formed
any such suspicions.

Margaret Cooper was in her chamber when Brother
Cross arrived. She had lost that elasticity of temper
which would have carried her out at that period among
the hills in long rambles, led by those wild, wooing
companions, which gambol along the paths of poetic contemplation.
The old man opened his stores of scandal to
Mrs. Cooper with little or no hesitation. He told her all
that Calvert had said, all that Ned Hinkley had fancied
himself to have heard, and all the village tattle touching
the engagement supposed to exist between Stevens and her
daughter.

“Of course, Sister Cooper,” said he, “I believe nothing
of this sort against the youth. I should be sorry to think
it of one whom I plucked as a brand from the burning. I

hold Brother Stevens to be a wise young man and a pious;
and truly I fear, as indeed I learn, that there is in the mind
of Ned Hinkley a bitter dislike to the youth, because of
some quarrel which Brother Stevens is said to have had
with William Hinkley. This dislike hath made him conceive
evil things of Brother Stevens and to misunderstand
and to pervert some conversation which he hath overheard
which Stevens hath had with his companion. Truly, indeed,
I think that Alfred Stevens is a worthy youth of
whom we shall hear a good account.”

“And I think so too, Brother Cross. Brother Stevens
will be yet a burning and a shining light in the church.
There is a malice against him; and I think I know the
cause, Brother Cross.”

“Ah! this will be a light unto our footsteps, Sister
Cooper.”

“Thou knowest, Brother Cross,” resumed the old lady
in a subdued tone but with a loftier elevation of eyebrows
and head — “thou knowest the great beauty of my daughter
Margaret?”

“The maiden is comely, sister, comely among the maidens;
but beauty is grass. It is a flower which blooms at
morning and is cut down in the evening. It withereth on
the stalk where it bloomed, until men turn from it with
sickening and with sorrow, remembering what it hath been.
Be not boastful of thy daughter's beauty, Sister Cooper —
it is the beauty of goodness alone which dieth not.”

“But said I not, Brother Cross, of her wisdom, and her
wit, as well as her beauty?” replied the old lady with
some little pique. “I was forgetful of much, if I spoke
only of the beauty of person which Margaret Cooper
surely possesseth, and which the eyes of blindness itself
might see.”

“Dross, dross all, Sister Cooper. The wit of man is a
flash which blindeth and maketh dark; and the wisdom of
man is a vain thing. The one crackleth like thorns beneath

the pot — the other stifleth the heart and keepeth down the
soul from her true flight. I count the wit and wisdom of
thy daughter even as I count her beauty. She hath all, I
think — as they are known to and regarded by men. But
all is nothing. Beauty hath a day's life like the butterfly;
with shineth like the sudden flash of the lightning, leaving
only the cloud behind it; and oh! for the vain wisdom of
man which makes him vain and unsteady — likely to falter
— liable to fall — rash in his judgment — erring in his aims
— blind to his duty — wilful in his weakness — insolent to
his fellow — presumptuous in the sight of God. Talk not
to me of worldly wisdom. It is the foe to prayer and
meekness. The very fruit of the tree which brought sin
and death into the world. Thy daughter is fair to behold
— very fair among the maidens of our flock — none fairer,
none so fair: God hath otherwise blessed her with a bright
mind and a quick intelligence; but I think not that she is
wise to salvation. No, no! she hath not yearned to the
holy places of the tabernacle, unless it be that Brother
Stevens hath been more blessed in his ministry than I!”

“And he hath!” exclaimed the mother. “I tell you,
Brother John, the heart of Margaret Cooper is no longer
what it was. It is softened. The toils of Brother Stevens
have not been in vain. Blessed young man, no wonder
they hate and defame him. He hath had a power over
Margaret Cooper such as man never had before; and it is
for this reason that Bill Hinkley and Ned conspired against
him, first to take his life, and then to speak evil of his
deeds. They beheld the beauty of my daughter, and they
looked on her with famishing eyes. She sent them a-packing,
I tell you. But this youth, Brother Stevens, found
favor in her heart. They beheld the two as they went
forth together. Ah! Brother John, it is the sweetest sight
to behold two young, loving people walk forth in amity —
born, as it would seem, for each other; both so tall, and
young, and handsome; walking together with such smiles,

as if there was no sorrow in the world; as if there was
nothing but flowers and sweetness on the path; as if they
could see nothing but one another; and as if there were
no enemies looking on. It did my heart good to see them,
Brother Cross; they always looked so happy with one
another.”

“And you think, Sister Cooper, that Brother Stevens
hath agreed to take Margaret to wife?”

“She hath not told me this yet, but in truth, I think it
hath very nigh come to that.”

“Where is she?”

“In her chamber.”

“Call her hither, Sister Cooper; let us ask of her the
truth.”

Margaret Cooper was summoned, and descended with
slow steps and an unwilling spirit to meet their visiter.

“Daughter,” said the good old man, taking her hand,
and leading her to a seat, “thou art, even as thy mother
sayest, one of exceeding beauty. Few damsels have ever
met mine eyes with a beauty like to thine. No wonder the
young men look on thee with eyes of love; but let not the
love of youth betray thee. The love of God is the only
love that is precious to the heart of wisdom.”

Thus saying, the old man gazed on her with as much
admiration as was consistent with the natural coldness of
his temperament, his years, and his profession. His address,
so different from usual, had a soothing effect upon
her. A sigh escaped her, but she said nothing. He then
proceeded to renew the history which had been given to
him and which he had already detailed to her mother. She
heard him with patience, in spite of all his interpolations
from Scripture, his ejaculations, his running commentary
upon the narrative, and the numerous suggestive topics
which took him from episode to episode, until the story
seemed interminably mixed up in the digression.

But when he came to that portion which related to the

adventure of Ned Hinkley, to his espionage, the conference
of Stevens with his companion — then she started — then
her breathing became suspended, then quickened — then
again suspended — and then, so rapid in its rush, that her
emotion became almost too much for her powers of suppression.

But she did suppress it, with a power, a resolution, not
often paralleled among men — still more seldom among
women. After the first spasmodic acknowledgment given
by her surprise, she listened with comparative calmness.
She, alone, had the key to that conversation. She, alone,
knew its terrible signification. She knew that Ned Hinkley
was honest — was to be believed — that he was too simple,
and too sincere, for any such invention; and, sitting
with hands clasped upon that chair — the only attitude
which expressed the intense emotion which she felt — she
gazed with unembarrassed eye upon the face of the speaker,
while every word which he spoke went like some keen,
death-giving instrument into her heart.

The whole dreadful history of the villany of Stevens, her
irreparable ruin — was now clearly intelligible. The mocking
devil at her elbow had spoken nothing but the truth.
She was indeed the poor victim of a crafty villain. In the
day of her strength and glory she had fallen — fallen, fallen,
fallen!

“Why am I called to hear this?” she demanded with
singular composure.

The old man and the mother explained in the same
breath — that she might reveal the degree of intercourse
which had taken place between them, and, if possible, account
for the absence of her lover. That, in short, she
might refute the malice of enemies and establish the falsehood
of their suggestions.

“You wish to know if I believe this story of Ned
Hinkley?”

“Even so, my daughter.”

“Then, I do!”

“Ha! what is it you say, Margaret?”

“The truth.”

“What?” demanded the preacher, “you can not surely
mean that Brother Stevens hath been a wolf in sheep's
clothing — that he hath been a hypocrite.”

“Alas!” thought Margaret Cooper — “have I not been
my own worst enemy — did I not know him to be this from
the first?”

Her secret reflection remained, however, unspoken. She
answered the demand of John Cross without a moment's
hesitation.

“I believe that Alfred Stevens is all that he is charged
to be — a hypocrite — a wolf in sheep's clothing! — I see
no reason to doubt the story of Ned Hinkley. He is an
honest youth.”

The old lady was in consternation. The preacher aghast
and confounded.

“Tell me, Margaret,” said the former, “hath he not
engaged himself to you? Did he not promise — is he not
sworn to be your husband?”

“I have already given you my belief. I see no reason
to say anything more. What more do you need? Is he
not gone — fled — has he not failed—”

She paused abruptly, while a purple flush went over her
face. She rose to retire.

“Margaret!” exclaimed the mother.

“My daughter!” said John Cross.

“Speak out what you know — tell us all—”

“No! I will say no more. You know enough already.
I tell you, I believe Alfred Stevens to be a hypocrite and a
villain. Is not that enough? What is it to you whether
he is so or not? What is it to me, at least? You do not
suppose that it is anything to me? Why should you?
What should he be? I tell you he is nothing to me —
nothing — nothing — nothing! Villain or hypocrite, or

what not — he is no more to me than the earth on which I
tread. Let me hear no more about him, I pray you. I
would not hear his name! Are there not villains enough
in the world, that you should think and speak of one
only?”

With these vehement words she left the room, and
hurried to her chamber. She stopped suddenly before the
mirror.

“And is it thus!” she exclaimed — “and I am—”

The mother by this time had followed her into the
room.

“What is the meaning of this, Margaret? — tell me!”
cried the old woman in the wildest agitation.

“What should it be, mother? Look at me! — in my
eyes — do they not tell you? Can you not read?”

“I see nothing — I do not understand you, Margaret.”

“Indeed! but you shall understand me! I thought my
face would tell you without my words. I see it there,
legible enough, to myself. Look again! — spare me if you
can — spare your own ears the necessity of hearing me
speak!”

“You terrify me, Margaret — I fear you are out of your
mind.

“No! no! that need not be your fear; nor, were it true,
would it be a fear of mine. It might be something to hope
— to pray for. It might bring relief. Hear me, since you
will not see. You ask me why I believe Stevens to be a
villain. I know it.”

“Ha! how know it!”

“How! How should I know it? Well, I see that I
must speak. Listen then. You bade me seek and make a
conquest of him, did you not? Do not deny it, mother —
you did.”

“Well, if I did?”

“I succeeded! Without trying, I succeeded! He declared

to me his love — he did! — he promised to marry
me. He was to have married me yesterday — to have met
me in church and married me. John Cross was to have
performed the ceremony. Well! you saw me there — you
saw me in white — the dress of a bride! — Did he come?
Did you see him there? Did you see the ceremony performed?”

“No, surely not — you know without asking.”

“I know without asking! — surely I do! — but look
you, mother — do you think that conquests are to be made,
hearts won, loves confessed, pledges given, marriage-day
fixed — do these things take place, as matters of pure form?
Is there no sensation — no agitation — no beating and violence
about the heart — in the blood — in the brain! I tell
you there is — a blinding violence, a wild, stormy, sensation
— fondness, forgetfulness, madness! I say, madness!
madness! madness!”

“Oh, my daughter, what can all this mean? Speak
calmly, be deliberate!”

“Calm! deliberate! What a monster if I could be!
But I am not mad now. I will tell you what it means.
It means that, in taking captive Alfred Stevens — in winning
a lover — securing that pious young man — there
was some difficulty, some peril. Would you believe it?
— there were some privileges which he claimed. He
took me in his arms. Ha! ha! He held me panting to
his breast. His mouth filled mine with kisses—”

“No more, do not say more, my child!”

“Ay, more! more! much more! I tell you — then came
blindness and madness, and I was dishonored — made a
woman before I was made a wife! Ruined, lost, abused,
despised, abandoned! Ha! ha! ha! no marriage ceremony.
Though I went to the church. No bridegroom
there, though he promised to come. Preacher, church,
bride, all present, yet no wedding. Ha! ha! ha! How

do I know! — Good reason for it, good reason — Ha! ha!
— ah!”

The paroxysm terminated in a convulsion. The unhappy
girl fell to the floor as if stricken in the forehead.
The blood gushed from her mouth and nostrils, and she
lay insensible in the presence of the terrified and miserable
mother.