the scattered household goods into shelter.
They were all piled into one room in a hopeless tangle.

"We'll not attempt to straighten out anything to-night," said Miss
Eunice, looking round wearily when the last sympathetic neighbour had
departed in time to escape the breaking storm. She and Philippa had
accepted Mrs. Sears's offer of her guest-chamber for the night.
Macklin had gone home with the minister's son. Alec had had many
invitations, but he refused them all. With a morbid feeling that
because his carelessness caused the fire he ought to do penance and
not allow himself to be comfortable, he pulled a pillow and a
mattress from the pile of goods into the empty room adjoining, and
threw himself down on that.

In the excitement of the scene through which he had just passed, he
had entirely forgotten the engagement he had run away from. Now, as
he stretched himself wearily out on the mattress, it flashed across
his mind that he had failed to keep his appointment, and that the man
had gone. A groan of disappointment escaped him.

"If I wasn't born to a dog's luck!" he exclaimed, "to miss a position
like that just when we need it the most. Goodness only knows what we
are going to do now. But I needn't say that. It's a hard world, and
there's no goodness in it."

The next instant, he pulled the sheet over his eyes to shut out the
blinding glare of lightning that lit up the empty room. The crash of
thunder that followed seemed to his distorted fancy the defiant
challenge of all the powers of darkness. All sorts of rebellious
thoughts flocked through the boy's mind, as he lay there in the
darkness of the empty room, thinking bitterly of his thwarted plans.
Midnight always magnifies troubles, and as he brooded over his
disappointments and railed at his fate, not only his past wrongs
loomed up to colossal size, but a vague premonition of worse evil to
come began to weigh on him. It was nearly morning before he dropped
into a troubled sleep.

Refreshed by a long night's rest and the tempting breakfast Mrs.
Sears spread for her three guests, Philippa soon recovered her usual
gay spirits. The news that Alec had disclosed the night before, which
sent her stunned and heart-sick to her retreat in the old apple-tree,
had faded into the background in the excitement of the fire. She
thought of it all the time she was dressing, but the keenness of her
distress was not so overwhelming as it had been. It was like some old
pain