ch would have
gratified her more than she could have expressed) Frank could have met
the frown with a smile of pity. As it was, he turned to the little
eager countenance of Miss Tippet, and felt deeper respect than ever for
the sex; thus showing that just as an exception proves a rule, so an
unfavourable contrast strengthens a cause.

"Pray sit down, Mr Willders," entreated Miss Tippet earnestly; "I
should like _so_ much to hear how you did it from your own lips, and how
you can possibly venture up such dreadful things, just like going up the
outside of the Monument. Dear Loo, and you came down it, too; but, to
be sure, your eyes were shut, which was as well, for you were only in
your night--Ah, well, yes, _do_ sit down Mr Firem---Willders, I mean."

Frank thanked her, but declined, on the ground that he was on duty, and
that he feared he was doing wrong in even looking in on them for the few
minutes he had stayed. "Good-night, ma'am," he continued, "good-night.
You'll call at the station on your way home, Willie?"

Willie said he would, and then all the company, excepting the Eagle,
shook hands with the stalwart fireman, looking up at him as if he were a
hero just returned from the proverbial "hundred fights." Even Emma Ward
condescended to shake hands with him at parting.

"Perhaps you'll be in the middle of a fire this very night," cried Tom
Tippet, following him to the door.

"It is quite possible," said Frank, with a smile.

Miss Deemas was heard to snort contemptuously at this.

"Perhaps you may even save more lives!" cried Miss Tippet.

"It may be so," answered Frank, again smiling, but evidently feeling
anxious to make his escape, for he was not one of those men who like to
be lionised.

"Only think!" exclaimed Miss Tippet as Frank quitted the room.

"Ha!" ejaculated the Eagle, in a tone which was meant to convey her
well-known opinion that women would do such things quite as well as men
if their muscles were a little stronger.

It is but justice to Miss Deemas to explain that she did not champion
and exalt women out of love to her sex. Love was not one of her strong
points. Rampant indignation against those whom she bitterly termed
"lords of creation" was her strong tower of refuge, in which she
habitually dwelt, and from the giddy summit of which she hurled would-be
destruction on the doomed males below. Among her various missiles she
counted the "wrongs of her sex" the most telling shaft, a