he andirons as high as she could reach up the
chimney-throat without grazing her hands in withdrawing them, as was the
rule in fire-architecture on Virginia plantations. The March wind,
finding its way through many a crack and cranny, beat at the flames
until they flared this way and that. The cat dashed dizzily across the
hearth, and Lucy, with a cry of alarm, darted forward to snatch him from
the dangerous neighborhood. She caught hold of him, and pulled him away,
and the draught whipped her skirts into the hottest heart of the fire.

It was the work of an instant. The oily dressing of the cotton fabric
may have made it the more inflammable. Rooted to the floor by horror, I
saw a column of flame flash past me to the door, and heard the piercing
wail grow fainter down the stairs.

My mother heard it in the distant room where the sick woman was sleeping
quietly, the tiny baby on her arm. Shutting the door as she came out,
the hostess flew across the house to the north wing, and met the burning
child on the stairs. Eluding her by keeping close to the wall, she
gained the upper room, saw, at one wild glance that her own little ones
were safe, tore a blanket from the bed, overtook Lucy at the stair-foot,
and smothered the flames with it.

[Illustration]

Chapter V

What Was Done With Musidora

[Illustration]

The details of Lucy Bray's death were told to me by others. My childish
recollection held every feature of that first awful scene as tenaciously
as if the flames had kindled upon me, and not upon my hapless
playfellow. What followed is a hazy kaleidoscope, lurid and vague, until
my scattered thoughts settled to the perception that I was making a long
visit at Uncle Carter's and sharing Cousin Molly Belle's room and bed.

She made me a new rag-doll-baby while I was there. That was the first
thing that "brought me round," as Aunt Eliza phrased it. For one whole
day when it was raining and blowing out of doors, I had eyes and
thoughts for nothing except the evolution of that miraculous doll-baby,
as she grew and glowed into an entity under the fingers of my
best-beloved crony. She was a blonde after she ceased to be a blank. Her
eyes were blue, her cheeks were shaded carmine; she had a real nose
raised above the dead level of her countenance, stuffed artistically,
and kept in shape by well-applied stitches. Finally,--and half a century
thereafter I thrill in thinking of it,--an intellectual cranium w