In one moment he bounded through the
blazing doorway and up the smoking stair.

Just then the fire-escape came into view, towering up against the black
sky.

"Hold her, some one!" cried Aspel, dropping his poor burden into the
ready arms of a policeman.

"The boy's lost!" he exclaimed, leaping after Pax.

Aspel was a practised diver. Many a time had he tried his powers under
the Atlantic waves on the west of Ireland. He drew one long breath, and
was in the attic kitchen before it was expended. Here he found little
Pax and Tottie on the floor. The former had fallen, suffocated, in the
act of hauling the latter along by the hair of the head. Aspel did not
see them. He stumbled over them, grasped both in his strong arms, and
bore them to the staircase. It was by that time a roaring furnace. His
power of retaining breath was exhausted. In desperation he turned sharp
to the right, and dashed in Miss Lillycrop's drawing-room door, just as
the fire-escape performed the same feat on one of the windows. The gush
of air drove back the smoke for one moment. Gasping and reeling to the
window, Aspel hurled the children into the bag of the escape. He
retained sufficient power to plunge in head first after them and ram
them down its throat. All three arrived at the bottom in a state of
insensibility.

In this state they were borne to a neighbouring house, and soon restored
to consciousness.

The firemen battled there during the greater part of that night, and
finally gained the victory; but, before this happy consummation was
attained, poor Miss Lillycrop's home was gutted and her little property
reduced to ashes.

In these circumstances she and her little maid found a friend in need in
Miss Stivergill, and an asylum in Rosebud Cottage.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

BEGINS WITH JUVENILE FLIRTATION, AND ENDS WITH CANINE CREMATION.

The disreputable nature of the wind which blows good to nobody has been
so frequently referred to and commented on by writers in general that it
merits only passing notice here. The particular breeze which fanned the
flames that consumed the property that belonged to Miss Lillycrop, and
drove that lady to a charming retreat in the country thereby rescuing
her from a trying existence in town, also blew small Peter Pax in the
same direction.

"Boy," said Miss Stivergill in stern tones, on the occasion of her first
visit to the hospital in which Pax was laid up for a short time after
his