"Oh! Miss Minturn!" shrieked Dorothy, "save me! save me!"
For a second Katherine thought she would faint.
The next she snatched a portiere that had been used in one of the tableaux and left upon the floor, and wrapped it closely around the burning paper, beating it with her hands and doing her utmost to smother the cruel flames. "Don't be afraid, dear," she said to the girl, who, after that one half-crazed appeal, seemed to be paralyzed with fear, "you are God's child—you cannot be harmed. He is Life, and there are no fatalities in His realm, 'though thou walk through the fire thou shalt not be burned.'"
She did not know that she was talking aloud; she was not conscious of what she was saying; she only knew that she was reaching out, with her whole soul, to the ever-present Love wherein lay protection and safety, and all the time mechanically pulling the portiere closer about the chair.
Suddenly she heard a low, startled exclamation, saw Dorothy snatched from among the smoke-blackened lilies and passed along to Alice, who at last had appeared upon the scene; then, as in a dream, she felt herself enveloped in a shawl which was drawn so tightly about her skirts that she could not move, and saw Dr. Stanley's pale, anxious face looking down into hers, while he told her, in calm, reassuring tones, that there was nothing to fear.
"Can you stand so for a minute while I look after that still smoking chair?" he presently asked, and putting a corner of the shawl into her hand to hold.
Fortunately it was her left hand, and she grasped it mechanically, while she tried to mentally deny the well-nigh unbearable pain that was making itself felt in her right hand and wrist.
It was the work of but two or three minutes to crush out the last smoldering spark among the ruined lilies, for the flames had been effectually smothered by Katherine's presence of mind in wrapping the portiere about them and by her vigorous beating.
Then the physician turned again to her and gently removed the shawl from her burned and disfigured skirts.
"It is all out, thank God!" he said, after carefully looking her over. "It was a narrow escape for you and Dorrie, as well as from a serious conflagration. Now tell me, Miss Minturn, are you burned?" he concluded, searching her white face with troubled eyes.