foliage, some three yards away.

"Now cling for your life to the rest of the branches you've got,
Fairburn, till I go down to the long thick arm there below. Can you
hold?"

"Yes!" cried the other cheerfully, light beginning to dawn upon him.
"I can hold on; you go down."

Matthew moved down, and the branches, relieved of their burden, began
to exert a considerable upward pull. But the weight of the boy and the
girl held down the ends, and they awaited Matthew's call. It soon
came, though the interval of waiting seemed an age.

"Now then!" came the shout, and George could see his quondam enemy
firmly seated on a stout branch that had been cut shorter, its foliage
having interfered with the light of one of the windows of the library.
Matthew was sitting astride, his legs firmly gripping the branch. "Now
drop yourselves over," he went on. "You'll fall right on the top of
me, and I'll grab you. Throw one arm round Mary's waist, and then
seize the branches with both hands and stick tight."

"I'll stick like a leech," George replied, "but it's a fearful drop."

"There's no other way, none! See! the blaze has caught the library
roof behind you! It will be upon you in another minute. Drop over, for
pity's sake!"

George set his teeth, placed one arm round the child's slender form,
gripped hard a handful of the pliant boughs, and dropped over the