Jem sprang to rescue it with a cry, but it was impossible to reach it; it had fallen into a great hollow of red coal, and the blaze caught it at once.

“You are a wicked woman!” cried Jem, in a dreadful passion, to Aunt Hetty.  “You are a wicked woman.”

Then matters reached a climax.  Aunt Hetty boxed her ears, pushed her back on her little footstool, and walked out of the room.

Jem hid her face on her arms and cried as if her heart would break.  She cried until her eyes were heavy, and she thought she would be obliged to go to sleep.  But just as she was thinking of going to sleep, something fell down the chimney and made her look up.  It was a piece of mortar, and it brought a good deal of soot with it.  She bent forward and looked up to see where it had come from.  The chimney was so very wide that this was easy enough.  She could see where the mortar had fallen from the side and left a white patch.

“How white it looks against the black!” said Jem; “it is like a white brick among the black ones.  What a queer place a chimney is!  I can see a bit of the blue sky, I think.”

And then a funny thought came into her fanciful little head.  What a many things were burned in the big fireplace and vanished in smoke or tinder up the chimney!  Where did everything go?  There was Flora, for instance—­Flora who was represented on the frontispiece—­with lovely, soft, flowing hair, and a little fringe on her pretty round forehead, crowned with a circlet of daisies, and a laugh in her wide-awake round eyes.  Where was she by this time?  Certainly there was nothing left of her in the fire.  Jem almost began to cry again at the thought.

“It was too bad,” she said.  “She was so pretty and funny, and I did like her so.”

I daresay it scarcely will be credited by unbelieving people when I tell them what happened next, it was such a very singular thing, indeed.

Jem felt herself gradually lifted off her little footstool.

“Oh!” she said, timidly, “I feel very light.”  She did feel light, indeed.  She felt so light that she was sure she was rising gently in the air.

“Oh,” she said again, “how—­how very light I feel!  Oh, dear, I’m going up the chimney!”

It was rather strange that she never thought of calling for help, but she did not.  She was not easily frightened; and now she was only wonderfully astonished, as she remembered afterwards.  She shut her eyes tight and gave a little gasp.

“I’ve heard Aunt Hetty talk about the draught drawing things up the chimney, but I never knew it was as strong as this,” she said.

She went up, up, up, quietly and steadily, and without any uncomfortable feeling at all; and then all at once she stopped, feeling that her feet rested against something solid.  She opened her eyes and looked about her, and there she was, standing right opposite the white brick, her feet on a tiny ledge.