"Oh, my dear, _dear_ Julia!" exclaimed Miss Tippet, shutting the door of the room into which they had been ushered, and assisting her friend to disentangle herself from the bedclothes. "Oh! what a mercy we've not all been roasted alive like beef steaks--or--oh! _what_ a sight you are, my darling! You must have got it coming down that dreadful thing--the what's-'is-name, you know. Shall I ring for water?" "Tut, nonsense!" exclaimed the Eagle, panting as well from nervous excitement as exhaustion; "you are always so fussy, Emelina. Please assist me to tie this string, Miss Ward." "Yes, I know I'm fussy, dear Julia!" exclaimed Miss Tippet, bustling nervously about the room; "but I can't help it, and I'm so thankful for--; but it was so bold in these noble fellows to risk their lives to--" "Noble fellows!" shouted Miss Deemas, with flashing eyes, "d'you call it noble to pull me out of bed, and roll me in a blanket and shoot me down a--a--I don't know what, like a sack of coals? Noble fellows, indeed! Brutes!" Here Miss Deemas clasped her hands above her head in a passion of conflicting feelings, and, being unable to find words for utterance, burst into a flood of tears, dropped into a chair, and covered her face with both hands. "Dear, dear, _darling_ Julia!" said Miss Tippet soothingly. "Don't speak to me!" sobbed the Eagle passionately, and stamping her foot; "I can't bear to think of it." "But you know, dear," persevered her friend, "they could not help being--being--what d'you call it?--energetic, you know, for it was not rough. We should all have been roasted to death but for them, and I feel very, _very_ grateful to them. I shall respect that policeman as long as I live." "Ah, sure an' he _is_ a dacent boy now," said Matty Merryon, who entered the room just then; "the way he lifted you an' Miss Emma up an' flung ye over his showlder, as aisy as if ye was two bolsters, was beautiful to look at; indade it was. Shure it remimbered me o' the purty pottery ye was readin' just the other night, as was writ by O'Dood or O'Hood--" "Hood," suggested Miss Tippet. "P'r'aps it was," said Matty; "he'd be none the worse of an O before his name anyhow. But the pottery begood with--`Take her up tinderly, lift her with care,' if I don't misremimber." "_Will_ you hold your tongue!" cried the Eagle, looking up suddenly and drying her eyes. "Surely, miss," said Matty, with a toss of her head; "anything to plaize ye." It is due to Matty to say that, while the policeman was descending the ladder with her mistress, she had faithfully remained to comfort and encourage Emma; and after Emma was rescued she had quietly descended the ladder without assistance, having previously found time to clothe herself in something a little more ample and appropriate than a bolster.