heila who had slept until the last shock and who woke at
last to add her penetrating voice to the pandemonium.

"Do you smell something queer?" asked Mrs. Schuler. "Do you think that
was a lightning-bolt and it set the house on fire?"

Her husband shook his head doubtfully. "The lightning has gone by," he
said, but they went together on a tour of investigation.

Nothing was burning in the kitchen, but the rays of the uplifted candle
showed a zigzag crack on the wall behind the stove.

"That wall is the chimney," said Mrs. Schuler. "Something has happened
to the chimney."

"Let's go into the dining-room and see if anything shows there."

Into the dining-room they went. An acrid smell filled the room, and as
they entered a smouldering flame in the fireplace burst into a blaze,
from the draught of the door. Its fuel consisted only of some trash
that had been tossed into the fireplace and hidden behind the fresh
pine boughs that filled the opening through the summer. The drinking
water in the pitcher on the table was enough to put an end to it.

"It's hardly large enough to bother to put out," exclaimed Mr. Schuler,
"if it weren't that the chimney seems to be so shaken that the flames
might work through somewhere and set fire to the woodwork."

"There's no doubt about something serious having happened to the
chimney," and Mrs. Schuler stooped and pushed back three or four bricks
that had tumbled forward on to the hearth.

"The back is cracked," she announced from her knees. "With that big
crack on the kitchen side I rather think Moya had better use the oil
stove until Mr. Emerson can send a bricklayer to examine the chimney."

"Everything but this seems all right here; you'd better go up and try
to calm the women," advised Mr. Schuler.

The wind storm was dying down and the inmates of Rose House were
becoming quieter as the din outside moderated. The Matron went from
room to room bringing comfort and courage as her candle shone upon one
frightened face after another.

"It's all over; there's nothing to be afraid of," she said over and
over again. Only to Moya did she tell what had happened to the
chimney, so that she might prepare breakfast on the oil stove.

"It almost seems I heard a giant fall down the chimney," the Irish girl
whispered hoarsely.

"I dare say you did hear the bricks falling. There's a gallon or two
of soot in the dining-room fireplace for you to clean up in the
morning."

"'Ti