n
money, and never so thankful as now that this is so. Go and do your
best."

They scattered, proud to serve her, and thrilled with the excitement
of that awful hour; but many were amazed to find that after a brief
time she had followed them herself.

The younger Kitty pleaded, though vainly, to prevent her grandmother's
departure, for the Sun Maid answered firmly:

"You are to take my place as mistress here. I will have the old
coachman drive me in the phaeton to the nearest point advisable. I
must be on the spot, but I will not recklessly risk myself. Only, my
dear, it is _our city_, Gaspar's and mine; almost a personal
belonging, since we two watched its growth from a tiny village to the
great town it has become. Gaspar would be there with his aid and
counsel. I must take his place."

There were many who saw her, and will forever remember the noble
woman, standing upright in the low vehicle at a point where two ways
met; with the light of the burning city falling over her wonderful
hair, that had long since turned snowy white, and bringing out the
beauty of a face whose loveliness neither age nor sorrow could dim.

The sadness in her tender eyes deepened as she could see the cruel
blaze sweeping on and on, wiping out home after home and hurling to
destruction the mighty structures of which she had been so personally
proud.

"Oh, I have loved it, I have loved it! Its very paving-stones have
been dear to me, and it is as if all these fleeing, homeless ones were
my own children. Well, it is--Chicago,--a city with a mission. It
cannot die. Let the fire do its worst; not all shall perish. There are
things which cannot burn. Again and again and again I have thanked God
for the wealth he led my Gaspar, the penniless and homeless, to
gain--for His own glory. Let the flames destroy unto the limit He has
set. Out of their ruins shall rise another city, fairer and lovelier
than this has been; richer because of this purification and far more
tender in its broad welcome to humanity."

Hour after hour she waited there, directing, comforting, assisting;
giving shelter and sustenance, and, best of all, the influence of her
high faith and indomitable courage. As it had done before, her clear
sight gazed into the future and beheld the glory that should be; and,
like every prophecy her tongue had ever uttered, this, spoken there in
the very light of her desolation, as it were, has already been more
than verified.

This all