The man flew at me and hung over me, his strong locks shaking, his great
black fist uplifted and the only tears in his eyes I ever saw there.
"Damnession! She's not mine! I trade her to God faw these one! Go! tell
him she's his, he kin burn her if he feel like'!" He gave a half laugh,
fresh witness of his distress, and went into the gate of the asylum.

I smiled--what could I do?--and was turning away, when I saw the chief of
the fire department. It took but one moment to tell him my want, and in
another he had put the cottage roof under the charge of four of his men
with instructions not to leave it till the danger was past or the house
burning. The engine near us had drawn the well dry and was coming away. He
met it, pointed to where, beneath swirling billows of black smoke, the
pretty gable of the taxidermist's house shone like a white sail against a
thundercloud, gave orders and disappeared.

The street was filling with people. A row of cottages across the way was
being emptied. The crackling flames were but half a square from
Manouvrier's house. I called him once more to come. He waved his hand
kindly to imply that he knew what I had done. He and his wife were in the
Sisters' front garden walk conversing eagerly with the Mother Superior.
They neared the gate. Suddenly the Mother Superior went back, the
lay-sister guarding the gate let the pair out and the three of us
hurried off together.

We found ourselves now in the uproar and vortex of the struggle. Only at
intervals could we take our attention from the turmoil that impeded or
threatened us, to glance forward at the white gable or back--as Manouvrier
persisted in doing--to the Sisters' cottage. Once I looked behind and
noticed, what I was loath to tell, that the firemen on its roof had grown
busy; but as I was about to risk the truth, the husband and wife, glancing