t the second story and
firemen were pitching things out of the windows as fast as they
could--chairs, rugs, pillows, and so on. Finally the last man came out,
smoke coming after him--it was quick work! Now, remember, dear, no one
was killed--" he stopped to pat his wife's hand reassuringly. "Well,
just then, at the third-story windows--it seems the laundress has
children--"

"Children!" gasped Miss Ives. "Oh, NO!"

"Yes, four of 'em--the oldest a little fellow of ten, had the baby in
his arms--." The doctor stopped.

"Go ON, Jim!"

"Well, they put the ladder back again, but the sill was aflame then. No
use! Just then the mother and father--poor souls--arrived. They'd been
at a dance in the village. The woman screamed--"

"We heard."

"Ah? The man had to be held, poor fellow! It was--it was--" Again the
doctor stopped, unable to go on. But after a few seconds he began more
briskly: "Well! The mill was connected with this house, you know, by a
little bridge, from the tank floor of the mill to the roof. No one had
thought of it, because every one supposed that there was no one in the
mill. Before the crowd had fairly seen that there WERE children caged
up there, they left the window, and not a minute later we saw them come
up the trap-door by the tank. Lord, how every one yelled."

"They'd thought of it, the darlings!" half sobbed Mrs. Arbuthnot.

"No, they'd never have thought of it--too terrified, poor little
things. No. We all saw that there was some one--a woman--with them
hurrying them along. I was helping hold the mother or I might have
thought it was the mother. They scampered across that bridge like
little squirrels, the woman with the baby last. By that time the mill
was roaring like a furnace behind them, and the bridge itself burst
into flames at the mill end. She--the woman--must have felt it
tottering, for she flung herself the last few feet--but she couldn't
make it. She threw the baby, by some lucky accident, for she couldn't
have known what she was doing, safe to the others, and caught at the
rail, but the whole thing gave way and came down.... I got there about
the first--she'd only fallen some dozen feet, you know, on the flat
roof of the kitchen, but she was all smashed up, poor little girl. We
carried her into the housekeeper's room--and then I saw that it was
little Miss Carter--your Dancing Girl, Ju!"

"Jim! Dead?"

"Oh, no! I don't think she'll die. She's badly burned, of course--face
a