The bare thought made her nervous . `` Do n't talk so , grandmother , '' said the girl , shuddering . `` Now , '' continued the old woman , with singular earnestness , yet smiling strangely at her own folly , `` I want one of you , my children , when your mother is dressed and in the coffin , -- I want one of you to hold a looking-glass over my face . Who knows but I may take a glimpse at myself and see whether all 's right ? '' `` Old and young , we dream of graves and monuments , '' murmured the stranger-youth . `` I wonder how mariners feel when the ship is sinking and they , unknown and undistinguished , are to be buried together in the ocean , that wide and nameless sepulchre ? '' For a moment the old woman 's ghastly conception so engrossed the minds of her hearers that a sound abroad in the night , rising like the roar of a blast , had grown broad , deep and terrible before the fated group were conscious of it . The house and all within it trembled ; the foundations of the earth seemed to be shaken , as if this awful sound were the peal of the last trump . Young and old exchanged one wild glance and remained an instant pale , affrighted , without utterance or power to move . Then the same shriek burst simultaneously from all their lips : `` The slide ! The slide ! '' The simplest words must intimate , but not portray , the unutterable horror of the catastrophe . The victims rushed from their cottage and sought refuge in what they deemed a safer spot , where , in contemplation of such an emergency , a sort of barrier had been reared . Alas ! they had quitted their security and fled right into the pathway of destruction . Down came the whole side of the mountain in a cataract of ruin . Just before it reached the house the stream broke into two branches , shivered not a window there , but overwhelmed the whole vicinity , blocked up the road and annihilated everything in its dreadful course . Long ere the thunder of that great slide had ceased to roar among the mountains the mortal agony had been endured and the victims were at peace . Their bodies were never found . The next morning the light smoke was seen stealing from the cottage chimney up the mountain-side .
Within , the fire was yet smouldering on the hearth , and the chairs XXXXX a circle round it , as if the inhabitants had but gone forth to view the devastation of the slide and would shortly return to thank Heaven for their miraculous escape .
before in like of that to up with within without