bring changes when it came, was suddenly impending.

Grandfather might be going to die.

And yet what was there for us to do but to go quietly back into the
brown room and sit down?

There was nothing to say even. There never is anything to say about
the greatest things. People can only name the bare, grand, awful fact,
and say, "It was tremendous," or "startling," or "magnificent," or
"terrible," or "sad." How little we could really say about the gale,
even now that it was over! We could repeat that this and that tree
were blown down, and such a barn or house unroofed; but we could not
get the real wonder of it--the thing that moved us to try to talk it
over--into any words.

"He seemed so well this afternoon," said Rosamond.

"I don't think he _was_ quite well," said Ruth. "His hands trembled so
when he was folding up his papers; and he was very slow."

"O, men always are with their fingers. I don't think that was
anything," said Barbara. "But I think he seemed rather nervous when
he came over. And he would not sit in the house, though the wind was
coming up then. He said he liked the air; and he and father got the
shaker chairs up there by the front door; and he sat and pinched his
knees together to make a lap to hold his papers; it was as much as he
could manage; no wonder his hands trembled."

"I wonder what they were talking about," said Rosamond.