he men carry water to pour on the
roof. The earnestness of their faces is very striking as Susy brandishes
a pail, Dotty a glass pitcher, and Prudy a watering-pot, in the delusive
hope that they are making themselves useful.

After this, when the children have had a troubled sleep, and wake in the
morning to find the house actually on fire, the horror is something
always to be remembered. Flames are already bursting out of some of the
lower windows. It is no longer of any use to pour water. There is no
time to be lost. Mrs. Parlin hurries the children down stairs, and out
of the house, under their grandmother's protection.

They thread their dismal way up town, through smoke and flame, Susy
shedding tears enough to put out a common coal fire. It is, indeed, a
bitter thing to turn their backs upon that dear old home, and know for a
certainty that they will never see it again! In the place where it
stands there will soon be a black ruin!

"The fire is lapping and licking," says Prudy, "like a cat eating
cream."

"I hope it has a good time eating our house up!" cried Dotty, in wrath.

Susy groans. Dotty thinks they are going to be beggars in rags and jags.
Prudy, always ready with her trap to catch a sunbeam, says that after
all there are other little girls in the world worse off than they are.
Susy thinks not.

"O, children, you are young and can't realize it; but this is awful!"

Dotty tries to be more wretched than ever, to satisfy her eldest
sister's ideas of justice. She sends out from her throat a sound of
agony, which resembles a howl.

Prudy's chief consolation is in remembering, as she says, that "God
knows we are afire." Prudy is always sure God will not let anything
happen that is _too_ dreadful. She has observed that her mother is calm;
and whatever mamma says and does always approves itself to this second
daughter.

But Susy can only wring her hands in hopeless despair. She has helped
save the books, still she "expects they will burn up, somehow, on the
road." Her pony has been trotting about through the night; his hair is
singed, and she "presumes it will strike in and kill him." The world
is, to Susy's view, one vast scene of lurid horrors. If she couldn't
cry, she thinks she should certainly die.

But this strange night came to an end. Dreadful things may and do happen
in this world, but, as a general rule, they do not last a great while.
The fire did its work, and then stopped. It was fearful w