meadows, where the grass was taller. The word of warning had hardly left Tom’s lips[48] before she found her dress burning, and while, being of wool, it was easily extinguished, Tom found in it an excuse for taking her in his arms to smother the flame.

[48]

“Go back to the house,” he said, in a voice which was full of feeling, yet which it would have been impossible to disobey. “We shall save the place; but I cannot work while you are in danger.”

“And you?” she demanded, clasping her hands upon his arm.

“Nonsense! there is no danger for me,” he returned, smiling tenderly. “Don’t think of me.”

It was not until late in the night that the contest against the fire was concluded. Tom worked with an energy in which desperation had a large place, while old Sarah, with the pathetic fidelity of an animal, labored by his side, indefatigable and unmurmuring. Faint streaks of light had begun to show in the east when Tom flung down the spade, upon which he had been leaning, for a last close scrutiny.

“It is all right now,” he said; “there can’t possibly be any fire left on this side of the marshes. It was lucky for us that the tide rose into the lower part of the trench.”

Undemonstratively, as she had worked, old[49] Sarah gathered herself together, grimy, stooping, quivering with weariness and hunger, and crept back to the house they had saved; while Tom, with tired step, climbed the path and took his way past the summer-house toward the other side of the mansion. As he passed the arbor something stirred within.

[49]

“Columbine!” he said, in surprise, recognizing by some instinct that it was she. “Why, Columbine, what are you here for? You will be chilled to death.”

“You sent me away,” returned the girl, with a trace of dogged protest in her voice. “You wouldn’t let me help.”

“I should hope not,” laughed Tom, nervously, taking off his hat and passing his hand through his hair, from which odors of smoke flowed as he stirred it. “You were hardly made to fight fire.”

“No,” she answered, with sudden and significant vehemence, “I was not made to fight fire.”

He moved uneasily where he stood in the darkness; then he took a stride forward and sat down 

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