e heaped upon each other--yet, for years
afterwards, Peter Grey, whenever he ate a particularly enormous dinner,
always observed, that he must make up for having once been starved at
Harry Graham's; and whenever any one of those little boys or girls again
happened to meet Harry or Laura, they were sure to laugh and say, "When
are you going to give us another

"GRAND FEAST?"

CHAPTER III.

THE TERRIBLE FIRE.

Fire rages with fury wherever it comes,
If only one spark should be dropped;
Whole houses, or cities, sometimes it consumes,
Where its violence cannot be stopped.

One night, about eight o'clock, Harry and Laura were playing in the
nursery, building houses with bricks, and trying who could raise the
highest tower without letting it fall, when suddenly they were startled
to hear every bell in the house ringing violently, while the servants
seemed running up and down stairs, as if they were distracted.

"What can be the matter!" cried Laura, turning round and listening,
while Harry quietly took this opportunity to shake the walls of her
castle till it fell.

"The very house is coming down about your ears, Laura!" said Harry,
enjoying his little bit of mischief. "I should like to be Andrew, now,
for five minutes, that I might answer those fifty bells, and see what
has happened. Uncle David must be wanting coals, candles, tea, toast,
and soda water, all at once! What a bustle everybody is in! There! the
bells are ringing again, worse than ever! Something wonderful is going
on! what can it be!"

Presently Betty ran breathlessly into the room, saying that Mrs.
Crabtree ought to come down stairs immediately, as Lady Harriet had been
suddenly taken very ill, and, till the Doctor arrived, nobody knew what
to do, so she must give her advice and assistance.

Harry and Laura felt excessively shocked to hear this alarming news, and
listened with grave attention, while Mrs. Crabtree told them how
amazingly well they ought to behave in her absence, when they were
trusted alone in the nursery, with nobody to keep them in order, or to
see what they were doing, especially now, as their grandmama had been
taken ill, and would require to be kept quiet.

Harry sat in his chair, and might have been painted as the very picture
of a good boy during nearly twenty minutes after Mrs. Crabtree departed;
and Laura placed herself opposite to him, trying to follow so excellent
an example