ht
sprang up, and the same instant there rang out a wild and terrible
shriek.

"Help! Carlos, help! I burn!"

The three men started forward, but they were not the first. Margaret
was conscious of but a single movement as she flew up the stairs, never
stumbling, lighted by that fearful glare above. To spring into the
garret, to drag down the heavy old cloak--the same that once had
frightened the three girls on their first visit--that hung close by the
stairway, to fling herself upon Rita, throwing her down, muffling her,
smothering and beating out the flames that were leaping up toward the
girl's white, wild face,--all this was done in one breath, it seemed to
her. She knew nothing in the world but the fire she was fighting, the
little flames that, choked down in one place, came creeping out at her
from another, playing a dreadful hide-and-seek among the folds of the
cloak, starting up under her very hands; but Margaret caught them in her
hands, and strangled the life out of them, and fought on. It was but a
moment, in reality. Another second or two and the flames would have had
the mastery; but Margaret's swift rush had been in time, and the good
heavy cloak--oh, the blessed weight and closeness of its fabric!--had
shut out the air, so that by the time the last of the three anxious
pursuers had reached the garret, the fire was out, and only smoke and
charred woollen remained to tell of the terrible danger. Only these--and
the two hands, burned and blistered, that Margaret was holding out to
her uncle, as he bent anxiously over her.

"Don't be angry with her, Uncle!" cried the girl. And she knew nothing
more.

CHAPTER XIV.

EXPLANATIONS.

"And she really is not hurt, Uncle John?"

"Not so much as an eyelash! You were so quick, child! How did you manage
it? She had only time to scream and put her hands to her face, before
you were upon her. The thing that flared up so was a lace shawl she had
on her arm,--switched it into the candle, of course!--and that she
dropped. It is not of her I am thinking, but of you, my dear, brave
Margaret!" He bent over her tenderly and anxiously; but she smiled
brightly in his face.

"Truly, they hardly hurt at all! As you say, I must have been very
quick, and the flames were only little ones. Elizabeth has bandaged them
so beautifully; the pain is almost gone already."

They were in Margaret's room; she on her sofa, with her hands swathed in
bandages, but otherwise looki