ce, and tears were running down his
cheeks. "Ten lives lost," he said; "among them Mrs. Montague."

Mrs. Morris looked horrified, and gave a little cry, "William, it can't
be so!"

It seemed as if Mr. Morris could not sit still. He got up and walked to
and fro on the floor. "It was an awful scene, Margaret. I never wish to
look upon the like again. Do you remember how I protested against the
building of that deathtrap? Look at the wide, open streets around it,
and yet they persisted in running it up to the sky. God will require an
account of those deaths at the hands of the men who put up that
building. It is terrible--this disregard of human lives. To think of
that delicate woman and her death agony." He threw himself in a chair
and buried his face in his hands.

"Where was she? How did it happen? Was her husband saved, and Charlie?"
said Mrs. Morris, in a broken voice.

"Yes; Charlie and Mr. Montague are safe. Charlie will recover from it.
Montague's life is done. You know his love for his wife. Oh, Margaret!
when will men cease to be fools? What does the Lord think of them when
they say, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' And the other poor creatures
burned to death--their lives are as precious in his sight as Mrs.
Montague's."

Mr. Morris looked so weak and ill that Mrs. Morris, like a sensible
woman, questioned him no further, but made a fire and got him some hot
tea.

Then she made him lie down on the sofa, and she sat by him till
day-break, when she persuaded him to go to bed. I followed her about,
and kept touching her dress with my nose. It seemed so good to me to
have this pleasant home after all the misery I had seen that night. Once
she stopped and took my head between her hands, "Dear old Joe," she
said, tearfully, "this a suffering world. It's well there's a better one
beyond it."

In the morning the boys went down town before breakfast and learned all
about the fire. It started in the top story of the hotel, in the room of
some fast young men, who were sitting up late playing cards. They had
smuggled wine into their room and had been drinking till they were
stupid. One of them upset the lamp, and when the flames began to spread
so that they could not extinguish them, instead of rousing some one near
them, they rushed downstairs to get some one there to come up and help
them put out the fire. When they returned with some of the hotel people,
they found that the flames had spread from their room, which wa