"Oh," cried Polly, as the little group drew her and Mamsie into their arms, "are we all here?"
"Yes, Polly; yes, yes," answered Jasper. And "Oh, yes," cried old Mr. King, his arm around Phronsie, "but we shouldn't have been but for this doctor of ours."
"And Mr. and Mrs. Henderson?" cried Polly, shivering at Grandpapa's words.
"We are here, dear child," said the parson's wife, pressing forward, and then the crowd surged up against them this way and that, and more people came down the fire-escape, and some were screaming and saying they had lost everything, and they must go back for their jewels, and one woman brought down a big feather pillow, and set it carefully on the grass, she was so crazed with fright.
"O dear, dear, can't we help them?" cried Polly, wringing her hands,
"Look at that girl!"
She was about as old as Polly, and she rushed by them plunging into the thickest of the crowd surging up against the fire-escape. "I'm going up," she kept screaming.
Polly remembered her face as she flashed by. She sat at the next table to theirs in the dining room, with a slender, gentle, little old lady whom she called "Grandmamma." "O dear!" groaned Polly, "we must help her!"
Jasper dashed after the girl, and Polly ran, too. He laid his hand on the arm of the flying figure as she broke through the crowd, but she shook him off like a feather. "She's up there," pointing above, "and I must get her."
One of the firemen seized her and held her fast. Jasper sprang for the fire-escape. "Jasper!" called Polly, hoarsely, "it will kill Grandpapa if you go—oh!" She turned at a cry from the girl, whose arms were around a bent, shaking, little figure, and they had both sunk to the ground.
"I brought her down long ago," said another fireman, who could speak
English, pointing to the white-haired old lady, who, on hearing her
granddaughter's voice, had pushed her way through the crowd, as Dr.
Fisher hurried up.