Florence took her beads from her pocket, put her arm around the weeping Josie, and drew her down to her knees before their mother's chair. Mrs. Willian glanced back as the others knelt too, then shut the door, breathing a blessing on them. "If it should be God's will to spare us now," she said, "I shall be the happiest mother in the world."
It was not God's will to spare them, she soon found. As they turned the last corner and came in sight of Mr. Willian's building, they saw it the centre of a vast crowd, firemen, volunteer workers, and lookers-on. There was no appearance of fire in the lower stories, but smoke was gushing through all the interstices of the upper windows.
Mrs. Willian wrung her hands and turned away. "There go the savings and toil of a lifetime!" she said.
It was impossible for the firemen to work well at that height, and the flames were creeping to the air. In a few minutes the smoke reddened, a little tongue of flame crept through a crevice, broadened, and the fire burst forth. No effort could stay it. Leisurely descending from floor to floor, it carried all before it. A thread of smoke in a corner of the ceiling, a tiny flame, and soon the whole room would be an intolerable brightness with masses of falling flaming timbers.
At midnight the family were all at home again; Mr. Willian lying half-senseless upon a sofa, his wife and children ministering to him. In his frantic efforts to save something from the burning building, one of his arms had been broken by the falling bricks.
Those were sorrowful days that followed, verifying the proverb that it never rains but it pours. Josephine was taken ill the week after the fire; but she was sure to be well soon, they said. She was not very ill. There was a little cough, a little fever, and a great weakness. The girls thought not much of it. They were too much engaged, indeed, attending to their father, and doing an immense deal of mysterious outside business.
"If Eva were only a boy!" sighed the father weakly. "A boy of twenty could earn a good salary."
"Father," Eva began very decidedly, "a girl of twenty can earn a good salary. Let me tell you what your good-for-nothing daughters are going to do. We haven't been idle the fortnight past. I am to take immediate charge of a class in the N—— school, with a salary of five hundred dollars to begin with, and a yearly advance. I shall stay at home, by your leave, and nearly all my money will go toward the housekeeping expenses. Besides that, I have a music class of four. So much for me. I doubt if that wonderful son would spare you more out of his earnings. Florence is to take a few more lessons in Indian-ink from Mr. Rudolf, and he says that in four or five weeks she will be able to earn ten dollars a week, painting photographs. Frances has got tatten and crochet-work to do for Blake Brothers, and they promise to pay her well. She does such work beautifully. Anne is to cut out paper bordering for Mr. Sales, who is building blocks upon blocks of houses. He says that he will keep her busy three months. Georgiana is to help mother about the house, and Dinah is going away. So now, father, you can lie on your sofa and rest, and your troublesome daughters will not let you starve."
Miss Eva ended with her cheeks very red, and her head very high in the air. But her pride softened immediately when she saw her father's quivering lips, that vainly attempted to speak.
"It is our turn now, dear papa," she said, kissing him; "and we are quite proud and eager to begin. You have cast your bread upon the waters in former times; now you must lie still and see it float back to you."