A WIND FLOWER
closed behind her, and shortly afterwards Willard left Mrs. Storrs in possession of the room.
The day affected him strangely. The steady low moan of the wind was by this time very noticeable. It was not cold, only clear and rather keen, and the scurrying grey clouds looked chillier than one found the air on going out. The boom of the surf carried a sinister threat with it, and the birds drove helplessly with, the wind-current, as if escaping some dreaded thing behind them.
Indoors, the state of affairs was not much better: Mrs. Storrs looked injured; her sister, a lady of uncertain years and temper, talked of sudden deaths, and the probability of premature burial, pointed by the relation of actual occurrences of that nature; Sarah was not to be seen. At last he could bear idleness no longer, and opening the dusty melodeon, tried to drown the dreary minor music of the wind by some cheerful selection from the hymn-book Mrs. Storrs brought him, having a vague idea that secular music was out of keeping with the character of that instrument. After a few moments' aimless fingering the keys he found
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