, _indeed_!" thought
she. "He knows _me_, don't he? Oh, sir! for the love of Heaven won't
you stop it?" she said, entreatingly.

"Run in the house, good mother. That is a wise woman," he advised.

Down in her heart, and as the very outcome of lip and brain she wanted
to say, "You needn't 'mother' me, you murderous rascals!" but,
remembering everything that was at stake, she crushed her wrath and
buttoned it in as closely as she had Uncle John behind the door in the
morning, and again, with swift gentleness, laid her hand on his arm.

He turned and looked at her. Vexed at her persistence, and extremely
annoyed at intelligence that had just reached him from the North
Bridge, he said, imperiously, "Get away! or you'll be trodden down by
the horses!"

"I _can't_ go!" she cried, clasping his arm, and fairly clinging to it
in her frenzy of excitement. "Oh, stop the fire, quick, quick! or my
house will burn!"

"I have no time to put out your fires," he said, carelessly, shaking
loose from her hold and turning to meet a messenger with news.

Poor little woman! What could she do? The wind was rising, and the
fire grew. Flame was creeping out in a little blue curl in a new
place, under the rafter's edge, _and nobody cared_. That was what
increased the pressing misery of it all. It was so unlike a common
country alarm, where everybody rushed up and down the streets, crying
"Fire! fire! f-i-r-e!" and went hurrying to and fro for pails of water
to help put it out.

Until that moment the little woman did not know how utterly deserted
she was.

In very despair, she ran to her house, seized two pails, filled them
with greater haste than she had ever drawn water before, and,
regardless of Uncle John's imprecations, carried them forth, one in
either hand, the water dripping carelessly down the side breadths of
her fair silk gown, her silvery curls tossed and tumbled in white
confusion, her pleasant face aflame with eagerness, and her clear eyes
suffused with tears.

Thus equipped with facts and feeling, she once more appeared to Major
Pitcairn.

"Have you a mother in old England?" she cried. "If so, for her sake,
stop this fire."

Her words touched his heart.

"And if I do--?" he answered.

"_Then your johnny-cake on my hearth won't burn up_," she said, with a
quick little smile, adjusting her cap.

Major Pitcairn laughed, and two soldiers, at his command, seized the
pails and made haste to the court-house, followed b