roke out, and I had supper at six, besides--" but there I
checked myself. The more I thought the matter over, the more desirable
it seemed that I should keep to myself the dreadful certainty that I
felt in regard to the origin of the fire. If people liked to believe
that it was caused by some negligence or carelessness of mine, it
would only complicate matters, beside robbing them of a comfortable
conviction, for me to tell that I had had no fire on the previous
evening. Yet such was the case. I had made my solitary meal of bread
and milk.

"What a girl you are, to be sure!" Mrs. Horton exclaimed, in genuine
admiration, as we turned back into the house. "Now, why couldn't
Jessie or I think of that! Twelve hours to fall! No, it would have
been six hours falling, wouldn't it? You said the fire broke out about
midnight. Well, you can think of more things and keep more quiet about
them than any ten men that ever I saw. When I think of anything I like
to tell of it, and I expect likely that's the reason that I never
think of real smart things; I don't hold on to them long enough; I
pick them before they're ripe."

Jessie went to the stove and lifted a lid to peep inquiringly into the
fire-box. "I'm not so sure that the fire wasn't started as Mrs. Horton
says," she declared. "This stove holds fire for a long time, you
know, Leslie. A gust of wind might have come up and made such a draft
that the embers started to burning again."

"If all the world were apple-pie, and all the sea were ink, and all
the trees were bread and cheese, what should we have to drink?" was my
not irrelevant thought. In strict accordance, however, with the
character for sagacity that Mrs. Horton had just given me, I said
nothing; but Mrs. Horton assented to the proposition with energy
enough for both. Ralph was giving unmistakable signs of sleepiness.
Mrs. Horton sat down and took him on her lap; the small head drooped
on her shoulder while she went on to the creaking accompaniment of the
old rocking chair. "I've just thought of another way in which that
fire might have been started"--she evidently had it upon her
conscience to furnish a satisfactory solution of the mystery--"I have
been noticing that you keep matches in that china saucer over the
mantel-piece, and it's right alongside the window-sill. Now, girls, I
don't want to seem to find fault with any of your arrangements; but I
do like an iron match safe, with a heavy lid, better myself; then