“Fire! fire! fire!” shouted Wilson; “we are all being burnt up together!”

Poor Mrs. Carlyle, thus wildly aroused from sleep, sprang out of bed and into the corridor in her night-dress.  Everybody else was in a night-dress—­when folks are flying for dear life, they don’t stop to look for their dress-coats and best blonde caps.  Out came Mr. Carlyle, who has hastily assumed his pantaloons.

He cast a rapid glance down to the hall, and saw that the stairs were perfectly free for escape; therefore to hurry was not so violent.  Every soul around him was shrieking in concert, making the confusion and din terrific.  The bright moonlight streamed in at the corridor windows, but there was no other light; shadowy and indistinct enough looked the white figures.

“Where is the fire?” he exclaimed.  “I don’t smell any.  Who gave the first alarm?”

The bell answered him.  The hall-bell, which rang out ten times louder and longer than before.  He opened one of the windows and leaned from it.  “Who’s there?” Madame Vine caught up Archie.

“It’s me, sir,” responded a voice, which he at once recognized to be that of one of Mr. Hare’s men-servants.  “Master has been took in a fit, sir, and mistress sent me for you and Miss Barbara.  You must please make haste, sir, if you want to see him alive.”

Miss Barbara!  It was more familiar to Jasper, in a moment of excitement, than the new name.

“You, Jasper!  Is the house on fire—­this house?”

“Well, I don’t know, sir.  I can hear a dreadful deal of screeching in it.”

Mr. Carlyle closed the window.  He began to suspect that the danger lay in fear alone.  “Who told you there was fire?” he demanded of Wilson.

“That man ringing at the door,” sobbed Wilson.  “Thank goodness I have saved the children!”

Mr. Carlyle felt somewhat exasperated at the mistake.  His wife was trembling from head to foot, her face of a deadly whiteness, and he knew that she was not in a condition to be alarmed, necessarily or unnecessarily.  She clung to him in terror, asking if they could escape.

“My darling, be calm!  There’s no fire; it’s a stupid mistake.  You may all go back to bed and sleep in peace,” he added to the rest, “and the next time that you alarm the house in the night, Wilson, have the goodness to make yourself sure, first of all, that there’s cause for it.”

Barbara, frightened still, bewildered and uncertain, escaped to the window and threw it open.  But Mr. Carlyle was nearly as quick as she; he caught her to him with one hand, and drew the window down with the other.  To have these tidings told to her abruptly would be worse than all.  By this time some of the servants had descended the other staircase with a light, being in various stages of costume, and hastened to open the hall-door.  Jasper entered.  The man had probably waited to help to put out the “fire.”  Barbara caught sight of him ere Mr. Carlyle could prevent it, and grew sick with fear, believing some ill had happened to her mother.