ix fire-engines at
work, and they keep on arriving every minute, I hope they will save
the rest; and now, mother, what can we do to our faces and hands, they
are smarting awfully?"

"Dear me, George, are you burnt? I thought you were only dreadfully
hot."

"We feel hot, mother, just as if our faces were being roasted."

"I will get some oil, that will be the best thing," Mrs. Andrews said,
hurrying away to the kitchen, and coming back with a piece of
cotton-wool, and some olive-oil in a cup.

"You are burned, George. Why, child, your hair is all singed, and your
eyebrows and eyelashes. Why, what have you been doing to yourselves?
There could have been no occasion to put your heads into the flames
like that. Why, your hands are worse still; they are quite blistered.
I had better wrap them up in cotton-wool."

"It's the inside that's the worst, mother; perhaps if you put a bit of
cotton-wool there and tie it round the back it will do; we can't go
out with our hands all swaddled round like that. And now, please,
directly you have done we want to go down again to see the fire. Just
you go up to the road corner, mother. It's a grand sight, I can tell
you."

"We will have tea first," Mrs. Andrews said decidedly; "everything has
been ready except pouring the water in since eight o'clock, and it's a
quarter past nine now. After we have done I will put on my bonnet and
walk down with you as near as I can get. I am not going to lose you
out of my sight again."

So after their meal they went down together, but could not get
anywhere near the works, all the approaches now being guarded by the
police. It was a grand sight, but the worst was over, and there was a
general feeling of confidence in the crowd that it would spread no
further. A dozen engines were at work now. Some of the firemen were on
the roof, some on the stacks of timber, which looked red-hot from the
deep glow from the fire. The flames were intermittent now, sometimes
leaping up high above the shell of the burned-out buildings, then
dying down again.

"Thank God it's no worse!" Mrs. Andrews said fervently. "It would have
been a bad winter for a great many down here if the fire had spread;
as it is, not a quarter of the buildings are burned."

"No, nothing like that, mother; not above a tenth, I should say. It's
lucky that there was a strong wall between that and the next shops, or
it must all have gone. I have heard them say that part was added on
five o