The three men started forward, but they were not the first. Margaret was conscious of but a single movement as she flew up the stairs, never stumbling, lighted by that fearful glare above. To spring into the garret, to drag down the heavy old cloak—the same that once had frightened the three girls on their first visit—that hung close by the stairway, to fling herself upon Rita, throwing her down, muffling her, smothering and beating out the flames that were leaping up toward the girl's white, wild face,—all this was done in one breath, it seemed to her. She knew nothing in the world but the fire she was fighting, the little flames that, choked down in one place, came creeping out at her from another, playing a dreadful hide-and-seek among the folds of the cloak, starting up under her very hands; but Margaret caught them in her hands, and strangled the life out of them, and fought on. It was but a moment, in reality. Another second or two and the flames would have had the mastery; but Margaret's swift rush had been in time, and the good heavy cloak—oh, the blessed weight and closeness of its fabric!—had shut out the air, so that by the time the last of the three anxious pursuers had reached the garret, the fire was out, and only smoke and charred woollen remained to tell of the terrible danger. Only these—and the two hands, burned and blistered, that Margaret was holding out to her uncle, as he bent anxiously over her.
"Don't be angry with her, Uncle!" cried the girl. And she knew nothing more.
CHAPTER XIV.
EXPLANATIONS.
"And she really is not hurt, Uncle John?"
"Not so much as an eyelash! You were so quick, child! How did you manage it? She had only time to scream and put her hands to her face, before you were upon her. The thing that flared up so was a lace shawl she had on her arm,—switched it into the candle, of course!—and that she dropped. It is not of her I am thinking, but of you, my dear, brave Margaret!" He bent over her tenderly and anxiously; but she smiled brightly in his face.
"Truly, they hardly hurt at all! As you say, I must have been very quick, and the flames were only little ones. Elizabeth has bandaged them so beautifully; the pain is almost gone already."
They were in Margaret's room; she on her sofa, with her hands swathed in bandages, but otherwise looking quite her own self, only a little paler than usual; her uncle sitting by her, his hand on her arm. Peggy fluttered in and out of the room, entirely recovered from the effect of her fall the day before, and proud beyond measure of having charge of Margaret, who last night had been watching and tending her. Peggy's nursing was of doubtful quality; already she had baptised Margaret twice,—once with gruel, again with cologne, when the cork with which she had been struggling came out suddenly, deluging her patient with fragrance.