Marjorie opened the door again. The smoke and heat were stifling, but there was no flame that she could see. Then she shut her eyes, closed the door behind her, and rushed down the hall to Jack's room. She had been to it so often that she could not miss the door-knob, even in her excitement. Fortunately the door was unlocked. She opened it quickly, and shut it behind her, gasping for breath. Oblivious alike of the danger and the noise Jack was still fast asleep, but she soon woke him up, and together they rushed to the back window. Looking down they saw their father helping their mother out upon the sloping roof of the back piazza. At the sight of her poor mother, who was very ill, in so perilous a plight, Marjorie forgot all about her own danger, and shouting, "Hold on tight--I'll tell the firemen!" before her brother could stop her she had run back fearlessly to her own room despite the fact that the stairway was now all in a blaze. As she opened her eyes she saw the glazed helmet of a fireman at the window. [Illustration: "GO BACK AND LOOK AFTER FATHER AND MOTHER!"] "Go back!" she cried; "go back quick and look after father and mother; they are on the roof of the back piazza!" Then a strange feeling of dizziness came over her. She felt a strong arm around her waist. She dimly saw a kind face near to hers, and was conscious of being carried down, down, down, so far, so far, and of hearing people cheering a great way off. II. It was a very different house, the one that Marjorie went to live in after the fire, not nearly so nice as the dear old home where she and Jack had been born. In the first place, it was in a distant and different part of the city. The rooms were all differently arranged, and the furniture and everything in them were different. It seemed to Marjorie as if nothing had been saved from the old house. Even the clothes they all wore were different--very different, indeed; for they were black. That was a sign of the greatest and saddest difference. Though the firemen had quickly gone through the basement and rescued Marjorie's father and mother and Jack and the servants, the dear mother had not long survived the shock and the exposure: and Hetty, the waitress, who now attended to the housekeeping and looked after Marjorie, did things very differently from her. All these circumstances combined to make great changes in Marjorie's life. She went to another school now, near by; but she did not make friends easily with the pupils there, and so she spent most of her afternoons at home with Hetty instead of associating with girls of her own age. And very lonely she was much of the time. Hetty was a good waitress, who had been with the family for several years, and she knew just what Mr. Mason liked, and how he liked to have things done about the house; but she was an ignorant silly girl, and not at all a good companion for Marjorie.