ound with me. I'll stay right here!"
and turning, she went out.

There was silence in the office. Then the senior partner, his eye
twinkling, spoke:

"What are we going to do about it?"

"Why, nothing", drily said the other, "nothing, I suppose; you heard
what she said, I presume she will stay on."

And stay on she did, her one dominant idea as fixed as the polar star.
As the years rolled by she might have rested from her labors, but for
this sense of devotion to duty. Even a monthly pittance will count
through the ages; so Treesa's savings came at last to foot up into the
thousands. Not even good Father Clement could have told the amount, or
where she kept it. Like herself, it was a mystery. She continued to
hoard and to hide, with no misgiving of loss by thief, or by accident;
with no forewarning of danger. Yet dire calamity was impending.

It was past midnight when the veteran chambermaid was awakened by the
sound of crackling wood and the smell of stifling smoke. To spring out
of bed was the work of a moment, the aged limbs obedient to her call;
then all her faculties alert, she thrust her hand into a hidden recess
of the mattress, and clutching a bulky package from its depths, made her
way out into the corridor, where the smoke was still thicker, on down
the stairs from the servants' dormitory to the floor below. Staggering
to the manager's door she pounded with all her strength till those
within were aroused; and dizzy from fright and half-suffocation, she
ran to the fire alarm, banging the gong till doors flew open right and
left, and the halls were alive with people. The cry of "Fire!" on all
sides now added to the din. More alarms were turned in till ample help
was at hand. While the hotel manager's orders were being obeyed, and the
guests were deserting their rooms for greater safety in the lobby below,
Treesa was struggling to get back to the servant's floor, whence now
issued screams of terror, as, for the first time, the flames were seen
creeping in close proximity to the maid's quarters. In vain the firemen,
who were now cutting holes in the floor to insert the hose, tried to
intercept her. Bent upon serving her fellow-servants, she disappeared
through the blinding smoke Crawling flat upon her face up the stairs
to avoid the onset of the fumes, the girl reached the glass door that
imprisoned the terrified creatures, burst it through with one powerful
blow, and forced them out upon the fire escape, whe