“I think you will, later; or at least something very like it; for, when that flash light was thrown on, as the curtain went up the last time, somebody took a snapshot at us,” Katherine replied, smiling fondly into the eager face.

“Oh! who was it?”

“Some one whom you know.  Guess!”

“Uncle Phil?”

“Yes; he asked permission of the president of the class.  But now I must see about getting you out of this place.  I wonder where Alice can be!” said Katherine, looking out towards the deserted dressing room for the nurse, who had promised to be on hand to receive her charge as soon as everything was over.

She had been disconnecting several ropes of flowers that had been attached to the chair while she was talking, and, as no one came to assist her, she now rolled the girl towards the side of the stage, thinking, perhaps, she might get her off herself, as it was not very high.

But she had missed one rope, and, as it trailed along the floor, it swept over a saucer containing some still smoking Greek fire, or red light, that had been carelessly left just where it had been used.

The soft paper ignited in an instant, and the next moment the lower part of the lily chariot was ablaze.

“Oh!  Miss Minturn!” shrieked Dorothy, “save me! save me!”

For a second Katherine thought she would faint.

The next she snatched a portiere that had been used in one of the tableaux and left upon the floor, and wrapped it closely around the burning paper, beating it with her hands and doing her utmost to smother the cruel flames.  “Don’t be afraid, dear,” she said to the girl, who, after that one half-crazed appeal, seemed to be paralyzed with fear, “you are God’s child—­you cannot be harmed.  He is Life, and there are no fatalities in His realm, ’though thou walk through the fire thou shalt not be burned.’”

She did not know that she was talking aloud; she was not conscious of what she was saying; she only knew that she was reaching out, with her whole soul, to the ever-present Love wherein lay protection and safety, and all the time mechanically pulling the portiere closer about the chair.

Suddenly she heard a low, startled exclamation, saw Dorothy snatched from among the smoke-blackened lilies and passed along to Alice, who at last had appeared upon the scene; then, as in a dream, she felt herself enveloped in a shawl which was drawn so tightly about her skirts that she could not move, and saw Dr. Stanley’s pale, anxious face looking down into hers, while he told her, in calm, reassuring tones, that there was nothing to fear.

“Can you stand so for a minute while I look after that still smoking chair?” he presently asked, and putting a corner of the shawl into her hand to hold.

Fortunately it was her left hand, and she grasped it mechanically, while she tried to mentally deny the well-nigh unbearable pain that was making itself felt in her right hand and wrist.