will tell you what followed.

"Even as I sat looking at the old lady, that noise came again, and
plaster came tumbling down from the ceiling, obscuring the window
behind. As I fixed my eyes upon it, falling, I saw beyond it what really
made me think at first that I was taking leave of my senses. The houses
opposite seemed to shoot straight up into the air, as though they were
reflections in a mirror which had fallen forward. An instant after, I
saw what had happened. It was the window that was moving, not the
houses.

"It was so odd! I had time to see all this and change my mind, before
the great crash came to explain what had happened. For until the roar of
a cataract of disintegrated brickwork, followed by a cloud of choking
dust, showed that the wall of the room had fallen outwards, leaving the
world clear cut and visible under a glorious afternoon sky until that
dust-cloud came and veiled it, I could not have said what the thing was,
or why. There seemed to be time--good solid time!--between the sudden
day-blaze and the crash below, and I took advantage of it to wonder what
on earth was happening.

"Then I knew it all in an instant, and saw in another instant that the
ceiling was sagging down; for aught I knew, under the weight of a
falling roof.

"Old Mrs. Picture was not frightened at all. 'You get this little Dolly
safe, my dear,' said she to me. 'I can get myself as far as the landing.
But don't you fret about me. I'm near my time.' She seemed quite alive
to the fact that the house was falling, but at eighty, what did that
matter? She added quite quietly:--'It's owing to the repairs.' Dolly
suddenly began to weep, panic-struck.

"I saw that Mrs. Picture could not rise from her chair, though she
tried. But what could I do? Any attempt of mine to pick her up and carry
her would only have led to delay. I saw it would be quicker to get help,
and ran for it, overtaking Dave on the stairs.

"Below was chaos. The kitchen where I had left my cousin talking with
Uncle Mo and Aunt Maria was all but darkened, and the place was a cloud
of dust. I could see that Uncle Mo was wrenching open the street-door,
which seemed to have stuck, and then that it opened, letting in an
avalanche of rubbish, and some light. Cries came from outside, and Aunt
Maria called out that it was Mrs. Burr. Thereon Uncle Mo, crying 'Stand
clear, all!' began flinging the rubbish back into the room with
marvellous alacrity for a man of his year