bottom, then shivered into fragments over the floors.  Mrs. Townsend was too frightened to scream.  She sat huddled in her chair, gasping for breath, her eyes, rolling from side to side in incredulous terror, turned toward the street.  She saw a great black group of people crossing it just in front of the vacant lot.  There was something inexpressibly strange and gloomy about this moving group; there was an effect of sweeping, wavings and foldings of sable draperies and gleams of deadly white faces; then they passed.  She twisted her head to see, and they disappeared in the vacant lot.  Mr. Townsend came hurrying into the room; he was pale, and looked at once angry and alarmed.

“Did you fall?” he asked inconsequently, as if his wife, who was small, could have produced such a manifestation by a fall.

“Oh, David, what is it?” whispered Mrs. Townsend.

“Darned if I know!” said David.

“Don’t swear.  It’s too awful.  Oh, see the looking-glass, David!”

“I see it.  The one over the library mantel is broken, too.”

“Oh, it is a sign of death!”

Cordelia’s feet were heard as she staggered on the stairs.  She almost fell into the room.  She reeled over to Mr. Townsend and clutched his arm.  He cast a sidewise glance, half furious, half commiserating at her.

“Well, what is it all about?” he asked.

“I don’t know.  What is it?  Oh, what is it?  The looking-glass in the kitchen is broken.  All over the floor.  Oh, oh!  What is it?”

“I don’t know any more than you do.  I didn’t do it.”

“Lookin’-glasses broken is a sign of death in the house,” said Cordelia.  “If it’s me, I hope I’m ready; but I’d rather die than be so scared as I’ve been lately.”

Mr. Townsend shook himself loose and eyed the two trembling women with gathering resolution.

“Now, look here, both of you,” he said.  “This is nonsense.  You’ll die sure enough of fright if you keep on this way.  I was a fool myself to be startled.  Everything it is is an earthquake.”

“Oh, David!” gasped his wife, not much reassured.

“It is nothing but an earthquake,” persisted Mr. Townsend.  “It acted just like that.  Things always are broken on the walls, and the middle of the room isn’t affected.  I’ve read about it.”

Suddenly Mrs. Townsend gave a loud shriek and pointed.

“How do you account for that,” she cried, “if it’s an earthquake?  Oh, oh, oh!”

She was on the verge of hysterics.  Her husband held her firmly by the arm as his eyes followed the direction of her rigid pointing finger.  Cordelia looked also, her eyes seeming converged to a bright point of fear.  On the floor in front of the broken looking-glass lay a mass of black stuff in a grewsome long ridge.

“It’s something you dropped there,” almost shouted Mr. Townsend.

“It ain’t.  Oh!”

Mr. Townsend dropped his wife’s arm and took one stride toward the object.  It was a very long crape veil.  He lifted it, and it floated out from his arm as if imbued with electricity.