There Mrs. Thornton sat heroically in a chair, her brood all grouped round her, saying the Psalms, and the poems of Sir Walter Scott, over by heart: while Emily tried to keep her mind off Tabby by going over in her head all the details of her Earthquake. At times the din, the rocketing of the thunder and torrential shriek of the wind, became so loud as almost to impinge on her inner world: she wished this wretched thunderstorm would hurry up and get over. First she held an actual performance of the earthquake, went over it direct, as if it was again happening. Then she put it into oratio recta , told it as a story, beginning with that magic phrase, “Once I was in an Earthquake.” But before long the dramatic element reappeared⁠—this time, the awed comments of her imaginary English audience. When that was done, she put it into the Historical⁠—a Voice, declaring that a girl called Emily was once in an Earthquake. And so on, right through the whole thing a third time.