what she likes."

"You green goose! What will she want wid the bowl and you not leaving
her a spoon to sup wid! Where is the key of the safe, I'm askin' ye!
Maybe James could get it out yet."

"Oh, I don't know! I don't know! I expect I dropped it. I was going to
get the silver myself; I'd ha' got all of it, without you telling me,
but when I opened the pantry door, the fire leapt out at me, roaring
like the pit, and I dropped the key and run. I'm awful sorry, but I've
got the bowl, and I do wish you'd let me be."

A little apart stood Antonia, the French maid, bearing on her
outstretched arms a superb tea-gown of violet velvet, embroidered with
pearls. On it lay a pile of costly laces, slightly blackened by smoke,
but uninjured. Antonia had done her best, and had saved the treasure of
her heart. Margaret ran up to her.

"Antonia, where is Miss Wolfe?"

The woman did not seem to hear the question, but burst into agitated
speech. "Oh, mademoiselle, mademoiselle!" she cried. "Ah, the tragedy!
of all the robes arrived from Paris last week, but only last week, this
only remaining! It was all I could save, all! I tried; I burned myself
the hands, mademoiselle, to rescue the others, the blue crape, the
adorable lace _jacquettes_, the _satin rose-the_--in vain, all gone, all
devoured! _Mon Dieu_, and madame had not even had them on! But the lace,
Mademoiselle Montfort, the point d'Alencon, the Valenciennes, all, I
have it safe. See, mademoiselle, regard for yourself, _un peu noirci_, a
leetle blackened, _voila tout_! It is without price, the point
d'Alencon, you know, Mademoiselle Marguerite."

"Antonia, do you hear me? What do I care about the laces? Where is Miss
Wolfe?"

"She's mazed, miss!" said Mary, the cook. "She can't talk about nothin'
but that stuff. Sure Miss Wolfe is at Fernley wid the mistress. It's
wondher ye didn't meet them on the way, miss. She went wid Mrs. Peyton,
and me and the other girls stopped behind to see what we could save."

"Oh, no!" cried Margaret. "Mrs. Peyton came alone. She said Miss Wolfe
came back--for the jewels. She said she was in the house now."

"Lord help her then!" said the parlor-maid. "If she's in the house now,
she's as good as dead, and worse, too. The stairs has fallen in; Thomas
seen 'em fall. Oh, dear! oh, dear! what an awful time!"

"Be still, Eliza!" said the cook. "Where's Jenny? She was in the
sewing-room, next to Miss Wolfe's; maybe she'd know something. Who saw