h where Tony Foyle then was. He was not likely
to see the fire as yet, for in lighting the campus lamps he followed a
route that kept his back to the West Dormitory until he turned to come
back.

Like an arrow from the bow the young girl ran toward the distant gardener.
She took the steps of the little Italian garden in the center of the
campus in two flying leaps, passed the marble maiden at the fountain, and
bounded up to the level of the campus path again without stopping.

"Tony! Oh, Tony!" she called breathlessly.

"Shure now, phat's the matter widyer?" returned the old Irishman,
querulously. "Phy! 'tis Miss Ruth, so ut is. Phativer do be the trouble,
me darlin'?"

He was very fond of Ruth and would have done anything in his power for
her. So at once Tony was exercised by her appearance.

"Phativer is the matter?" he repeated.

"Fire!" blurted out Ruth, able at last to speak. The keen night air had
seemed for the moment fairly to congest her lungs and render her
speechless and breathless.

"That's _that_?" cried Tony. "'Fire,' says you? An' where is there fire
save in the furnaces and the big range in the kitchen----"

He had turned, and the red glare from the room on the second floor of the
West Dormitory came into his view.

"There it is!" gasped Ruth, and just then the tinkle of breaking glass
betrayed the fact that the heat of the flames was bursting the panes of
the window.

"Fur the love of----Begorra! I'll git the hose-cart, an' rouse herself an'
the gals in the kitchen----"

Poor Tony, so wildly excited that he dropped the little "dhudeen" he was
smoking and did not notice that he stepped on it, galloped away on
rheumatic legs. At this hour there was no man on the premises but the
little old Irishman, who cared for the furnaces until the fireman and
engineer came on duty at seven in the morning.

Ruth was quite sure that neither Tony nor "herself" (by this name he meant
Mrs. Foyle, the cook) or any of the kitchen girls, could do a thing
towards extinguishing the fire. But she remembered that Miss Scrimp, the
matron, must be in the threatened building, and the girl dashed across the
intervening space and in at the door.

There was not a sound from upstairs--no crackling of flames. Ruth would
never have believed the dormitory was afire had she not seen the fire
outside.

The girl ran down the corridor to Miss Scrimp's room, and burst in the
door like a young hurricane. The matron was at tea,