Not long after, the gong sounded for dinner, and unlocking the door Madam Conway was about descending to the dining room, when the thought burst upon her:  “What if she should be at the table!  It’s just like her.”

The very idea was overwhelming, taking from her at once all desire for dinner; and returning to her room she tried, by looking over the books and examining the carpet, to forget how hungry and faint she was.  Whether she would have succeeded is doubtful, had not an hour or two later brought another knock from the umbrella, and driven all thoughts of eating from her mind.  In grim silence she waited until her tormentor was gone, and then wondering if it was not time for the train she consulted her watch.  But alas! ’twas only four; the cars did not leave until six; and so another weary hour went by.  At the end of that time, however, thinking the depot preferable to being a prisoner there, she resolved to go; and leaving the key with the clerk, she called a carriage and was soon on her way to the cars.

As she approached the depot she observed an immense crowd of people gathered together, among which the red coats of the firemen were conspicuous.  A fight was evidently in progress, and as the horses began to grow restive she begged of the driver to let her alight, saying she could easily walk the remainder of the way.  Scarcely, however, was she on terra-firma when the yelling crowd made a precipitate rush towards her, and in much alarm she climbed for safety into an empty buggy, whereupon the horse, equally alarmed, began to rear, and without pausing an instant the terrified lady sprang out on the side opposite to that by which she had entered, catching her dress upon the seat, and tearing half the gathers from the waist.

“Heaven help me!” she cried, picking herself up, and beginning to wish she had never troubled herself with Theo’s mother-in-law.

To reach the depot was now her great object, and, as the two belligerent parties occupied the front, she thought to effect an entrance at the rear.  But the doors were locked, and as she turned the corner of the building she suddenly found herself in the thickest of the fight.  To advance was impossible, to turn back equally so, and while meditating some means of escape she lost her footing and fell across a wheelbarrow which stood upon the platform, crumpling her bonnet, and scratching her face upon a nail which protruded from the vehicle.  Nearer dead than alive, she made her way at last into the depot, and from thence into the cars, where, sinking into a seat, and drawing her shawl closely around her, the better to conceal the sad condition of her dress, she indulged in meditations not wholly complimentary to firemen in general and her late comrades in particular.