ry along your ladder,--that's your only chance."

All was wild confusion around the burning house. The ladder they had
gone for was missing from its case,--a neighbor had carried it off for
the workmen who were shingling his roof. It would never get there in
time. There was a fire-engine, but it was nearly half a mile from the
lakeside settlement. Some were throwing on water in an aimless, useless
way; one was sending a thin stream through a garden syringe: it seemed
like doing something, at least. But all hope of saving Maurice was fast
giving way, so rapid was the progress of the flames, so thick the cloud
of smoke that filled the house and poured from the windows. Nothing was
heard but confused cries, shrieks of women, all sorts of orders to
do this and that, no one knowing what was to be done. The ladder! The
ladder! Five minutes more and it will be too late!

In the mean time the alarm of fire had reached Paolo, and he had stopped
his work of arranging Maurice's books in the same way as that in which
they had stood in his apartment, and followed in the direction of the
sound, little thinking that his master was lying helpless in the burning
house. "Some chimney afire," he said to himself; but he would go and
take a look, at any rate.

Before Paolo had reached the scene of destruction and impending death,
two young women, in boating dresses of decidedly Bloomerish aspect,
had suddenly joined the throng. "The Wonder" and "The Terror" of their
school-days--Miss Euthymia rower and Miss Lurida Vincent had just come
from the shore, where they had left their wherry. A few hurried words
told them the fearful story. Maurice Kirkwood was lying in the chamber
to which every eye was turned, unable to move, doomed to a dreadful
death. All that could be hoped was that he would perish by suffocation
rather than by the flames, which would soon be upon him. The man who had
attended him had just tried to reach his chamber, but had reeled back
out of the door, almost strangled by the smoke. A thousand dollars had
been offered to any one who would rescue the sick man, but no one had
dared to make the attempt; for the stairs might fall at any moment, if
the smoke did not blind and smother the man who passed them before they
fell.

The two young women looked each other in the face for one swift moment.

"How can he be reached?" asked Lurida. "Is there nobody that will
venture his life to save a brother like that?"

"I will venture