ay. Who'll help to save a
Yorkshireman's home, however much he has blundered, for a Yorkshire
family?'

'We will, Mr William,' cried a hundred voices, and five minutes later
there was not a man to be seen in the yard; but Sarah and Naomi, who had
climbed to the lookout, saw them hurrying up the road to the hill on
which Balmoral stood.

Flames were coming out of the top windows.

'They may save the lower part,' said Sarah.

'The marble staircase won't burn, will it?' asked Naomi.

Sarah laughed hysterically. 'No; but it won't be much use alone,' she
remarked.

'It's going to be a big fire,' observed Naomi in an awe-struck voice.

'I'm glad my father is not there,' was Sarah's apparently irrelevant
reply.

Naomi was surprised for the second time that day at Sarah's solicitude
for her father. She did not know that her dream had something to do with
it. Besides, Mr Mark Clay, boastful and blustering, was a different man
from Mark Clay a prisoner in his own mills, with his beautiful house
burning.

'Oh miss, the royal suite is on fire! See!' cried Naomi, as she saw the
flames come out of that wing.

Sarah said nothing; but her lips tightened as she saw the wanton
destruction of her home, and, now that she came to think of it, there
were countless treasured possessions of her own there that she wanted to
save.

'I wonder if I ought to tell mother?' she asked herself.

But she need not have troubled. Mrs Clay knew, and was talking about it
in melancholy accents to Mary, her brother-in-law's maid. 'It's no more
than I expected, Mary; an' the mills will go next,' she said.

'Let's hope not, ma'am; and now that Mr William's gone up something may
be done to save it,' said Mary, who had great faith in her master.

But Mrs Clay had no faith in any human help; and when Sarah came down she
found her mother dry-eyed and resigned. 'Yes, my dear, I know; it's the
Lord's will. The Lord gave, an' the Lord taketh away. I began poor, an' I
suppose it's 'is will I should end so. Per'aps I lay too great store by
riches.'

'Never mind, mother, I'll work for you, and you shall never want, even if
I have to scrub floors to support you,' said Sarah.

Mrs Clay shook her head; but the tears came now and relieved her. 'It's
for you I care most, dearie. Your 'ands were never made to scrub floors
or do any menial work,' she declared, as she stroked Sarah's soft, white
hands.

'I don't believe anybody's hands were made to be idle