It was frightful; even while they were all sane people in the room, and, whatever their fears, restrained them. What then was it a moment later, when the woman of the house burst in upon them, with a maid in wild hysterics clinging to her, and another on the threshold screaming “Fire! Fire!” “It’s all on fire at the back!” the woman panted. “It’s on fire, it’s all on fire, my lady, at the back!” “It’s all—what?” Miss Sibson rejoined, in a tone which had been known to quell the pertest of seventeen-year-old rebels. “It is what, woman? On fire at the back? And if it is, is that a ground for forgetting your manners? Where is your deportment? Fire, indeed! Are you aware whose room this is? For shame! And you, silly,” she continued, addressing herself to the maid, “be silent, and go outside, as becomes you.” But the maid, though she retreated to the door, continued to scream, and the woman of the house to wring her hands. “You had better go and see what it is,” Lady Sybil said, turning to the schoolmistress. For, strange to say, she who a few hours before had groaned if a coal fell on the hearth, and complained if her book slid from the couch, was now quite calm. “They are afraid of their own shadows,” Miss Sibson cried contemptuously. “It is the reflection they have seen.” But she went. And as it was but a step to a window overlooking the rear, Mary went with her. They looked. And for a moment something like panic seized them. The back of the house was not immediately upon the quay, but through an opening in the warehouses which fringed the latter it commanded a view of the water and the masts, and of the sloping ground which rose to College Green. And high above, dyeing the Floating Basin crimson, the Palace showed in a glow of fire; fire which seemed to be on the point of attacking the Cathedral, of which every pinnacle and buttress, with every chimney of the old houses clustered about it, stood out in the hot glare. It was clear that the building had been burning some time, for the roar of the flames could be heard, and almost the hiss of the water as innumerable sparks floated down to it. Horror-struck, Mary grasped her companion’s arm. And “Good Heavens!” Miss Sibson muttered. “The whole city will be burned!” “And we are between the two fires,” Mary faltered. An involuntary shudder might be pardoned her. “Ay, but far enough from them,” the schoolmistress answered, recovering herself. “On this side, the water makes us safe.” “And on the other?” “La, my dear,” Miss Sibson replied confidently. “The folks are not going to burn their own houses. They are angry with the Corporation. They hold them all one with Wetherell. And for the Bishop, they’ve so abused him the last six months that he’s hardly dared to show his wig on the streets, and it’s no wonder the poor ignorants think him fair game. But we’re just ordinary folk, and they’ll no more harm us than fly. But we must go back to your mother.”