“The glare must have given notice,” said Julius, “but we’ll send if needful.  Let go, you foolish girl; I’m not leading a forlorn hope.”

Did Raymond, as he mounted his horse, turning from the contact of the white and black heads, admire the reasonableness of the Cecil who had never shown any fears for his safety, nor any tendency to run about the passages in her robe de chambre, though she was now dressing with all speed?

The women-folk had to depend on their own eyes for intelligence, for every male, not only of the household but of the village, between the ages of five and seventy, started for Wil’sbro’, and a good many females followed their example, including the cook and her suite.

However, Susan remained, to find her mistress flown, and in her fright, give Lady Rosamond as round a scolding as if she had been Charlie, for her rashness in attempting a transit, which Dr. Hayter had pronounced to be as much as her mistress’s life was worth.  Having thus relieved her mind, and finding that Mrs. Poynsett was really very comfortable, or else too eager and anxious to find out if she was not, the good woman applied herself to the making of coffee.

Anne and Cecil had found their way to the leads, and were thence summoned to partake of this hasty meal, after which they proposed going to look from the brow of the hill; and Mrs. Poynsett insisted that Rosamond should not stay behind on her account; and, glad to appease the restlessness of anxiety, out went the ladies, to find the best view of the town,—­usually a white object in the distance, but now blurred by smoke thick and black in the daylight, and now and then reddened by bursts of flame.

Anne had been reassured as to the need of beating out the fire and trampling down a place to isolate it, as in the bush-fires of her experience; and Rosamond related the achievements of the regiment in quenching many a conflagration in inflammable colonial cities.

It occurred to her that the best place whence to see it was the tower of the church, which, placed upon a little knoll, was standing out in full relief against the lurid light.  She found the key at the sexton’s, and led the way up the broken stone stair to the trap-door, where they emerged on the leads, and, in spite of the cold wind and furious flapping of the flag above their heads, stood absorbed in the interest of the sight.

There was a black mass in the open space, whence rose fitful clouds of smoke, the remnants of the fire, which had there done its worst; and beyond was a smoky undefined outline, with tongues of flame darting up, then volumes of dense white smoke, denoting a rush of water from the engines.  Black beings flitted about like ants round a disturbed nest; Rosamond hoped she detected some scarlet among them, and Cecil lamented over not having brought her opera-glass.  Even without this, it was possible to make out two long lines of men between the fire and the river, and at