re now, too, the
firemen's ladders were seen manned by the helmeted brigade. All bruised
and bleeding from the splintered glass, and still clutching fast the
rescued package, Treesa turned to retrace her steps, her only thought
now being to save the parlor floor and its treasures. Again she eluded
those who would have guarded her from danger, and made a hurried dash
for the stairway, when a sudden rush of flame, now fanned by the air,
blinded her, and she fell to the landing, dropping the bulk of her
holdings, where the fire greedily licked it to destruction.

Tender hands lifted her and conveyed her, crushed and unconscious, to
a temporary couch, where it was found, when the surgeon came, that her
hip was dislocated. To the mistress alone would she unloose what her
bleeding hand still held, as she whispered, "Put it away, safe--Masses
for me soul--Father Clement."

But Treesa did not die. The morning papers rang with her heroism, but
none then knew that she had lost the hoarded earnings of a life-time;
that the one package saved represented but a small proportion of her
treasure. She was taken to a hospital, and, fortunately for her peace
of mind, the house was closed for repairs. During the weeks of building,
the old bones were mending. The sufferer counted the days with jealous
watching. When an agony of fear seized upon her lest she might never go
back, only the mistress or the kindly priest had power to quiet her, She
was promised over and over again that she should not be supplanted.

When the hotel opened anew, the daily press blazoned to the world the
fact, giving a personal paragraph to the officials, and including a
list of well-known names, among them the humble one of Teresa O'Toole,
who had been a chambermaid there during sixty years. This scrap of paper
was held fast in the horny fingers, and seemed to the fevered senses to
keep alive the link between her and the only home she knew.

Hither she was borne at last to a small room that was to be her
portion and her pension forevermore. Her old quarters, austere and clean
and bare, had been effaced by the carpenter's hammer, and this corner
retreat had been partitioned from a domestic recess in the rear. But
it was on the parlor floor, that fetich of a devoted life. Crippled
and useless, Treesa was an object of unobtrusive care. She kept her
shrunken savings about her person, more unwilling than ever to trust
the unexplored fields of finance. She grew queru