ke, but in a very modified degree.

"Robert," Ellen cried eagerly, when they had reached the kitchen, where
all was quiet, "for God's sake, go and see what has become of your
master. We left him drinking in the parlour last night. I've called to
him again and again, but there's been no answer."

"Don't you take on, mum; master's all right, I daresay. Here be the gals
and Mrs. Tadman coming downstairs; they'll take care o' you, while I go
and look arter him. You've no call to be frightened. If the fire should
come this way, you've only got to open yon door and get out into the
yard. You're safe here."

The women were all huddled together in the kitchen by this time, half
dressed, shivering, and frightened out of their wits. Ellen Whitelaw was
the only one among them who displayed anything like calmness.

The men were all astir. One had run across the fields to Malsham to
summon the fire-engine, another was gone to remove some animals stabled
near the house.

The noise of burning wood was rapidly increasing, the smoke came creeping
under the kitchen-door presently, and, five minutes after he had left
them, the farm-servant came back to say that he could find no traces of
his master. The parlor was in flames. If he had been surprised by the
fire in his sleep, it must needs be all over with him. The man urged his
mistress to get out of the house at once; the fire was gaining ground
rapidly, and it was not likely that anything he or the other men could do
would stop its progress.

The women left the kitchen immediately upon this warning, by a door
leading into the yard. It was broad daylight by this time; a chilly
sunless morning, and a high wind sweeping across the fields and fanning
the flames, which now licked the front wall of Wyncomb Farmhouse. The
total destruction of the place seemed inevitable, unless help from
Malsham came very quickly. The farm servants were running to and fro with
buckets of water from the yard, and flinging their contents in at the
shattered windows of the front rooms; but this was a small means of
checking the destruction. The house was old, built for the most part of
wood, and there seemed little hope for it.

Ellen and the other women went round to the front of the house, and stood
there, dismal figures in their scanty raiment, with woollen petticoats
pinned across their shoulders, and disordered hair blown about their
faces by the damp wind. They stood grouped together in utter
helple