"S op her! top her!" shrieked Miss Trant in frenzy-but too late.

The fleet young foot had already reached the hall door, and quick as lightning Flo was rushing upstairs. There was the wardrobe-there the chest-and the child seized it.

She reached the garden unhurt, just as the fire-escape, with its burden of brave helmeted men, dashed up. Only a little out of breath, a little bit scorched, and a little bit frightened at her own exploit.

Flo was astonished at being seized in Miss Tabitha's arms. "My blessing! my blessing!" quoth the old lady. "Oh! Florence, you were worth half-a-dozen chests of money to me."

"But, Aunt Tabitha," answered Flo, "it seemed a pity to lose all that money!"

The fire was easily got under. Originating in the big spare cupboard outside Miss Trant's door, caused by a spark of a candle held carelessly over a pile of waste papers, she had perceived it ere it made much headway. Heaps of brown paper, for Aunt Tabitha never wasted packing

materials or string, smouldering for some time, accounted for the volumes of thick smoke that had so terrified the inhabitants of Beech Villa. Her own room, with its handsome furniture and draperies, was gutted and spoiled, less by fire than by the thick jets of water directed into it. But that was nearly all the damage done to property, and the crowd who had collected in expectation of a "grand flare-up" quickly melted away.

Yet Miss Tabitha was much shaken for the time being. She now looked almost with horror at the box in which her money was stored. The next morning she caused it to be brought down into the drawing-room, and opened it in the sight of Flo and Miss Howard.

Florence, you were right!" she said, in a quavering voice, strangely unlike her own. "Where moth and rus: doth corrupt, and where fire can break through and burn, is no fit place to have money; we will give £20 as a thank-offering, and the rest shall be put in a bank for you."

Alice could not help smiling at the old lady's idea that the cash-box was the only place liable

to be reached by misfortune; but Miss Trant was so evidently in earnest that she could not but respect her.

"But

Florence, however, as usual broke in. the money might be lost in a bank, mightn't it, Aunt Tabitha?"

"True, child," and she passed her hand wearily over the furrowed brow. "But when I give it up I trust it to Providence."

"A queer sort of Providence the bank often is," Alice could not help saying. "But you are right, ma'am-if you must store it up, the money is safer there."

There was a flash of her old spirit in the way Miss Tabitha turned on the speaker. "Pray, Miss Howard," she inquired, "have you never read in your Bible, 'If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel'?" (1 Tim. v. 8.)

"I beg your pardon, Miss Trant," replied Alice, meekly. "I had forgotten there were two sides to every question."