Mr. Diggs is more than staggered by such a proof. He begins to suspect there may be something in it. As Mr. Phillips assists the worthy sugar-baker over a piece of very burnt and precarious-looking flooring, out at a side hole in the house, as the stairs are no longer safe, Mr. Diggs thanks him very civilly for his attention, and—he almost adds—for the satisfactory result of this last experiment; but he checked himself. Time would show. Meanwhile, all was pleasant confusion, and applause, and wonder, and satisfaction, and congratulation, and the re-arrangement of habiliments, and the polishing of smutty faces, and laughing and good humour among the company. With some difficulty, Mr. Diggs discovered his wife, and with almost equal difficulty recognised her after he had found her. She had been honoured more than almost any one else, with the falling embers and black smut of the conflagration. Her pink and fawn-coloured silk shawl was spotted all over, and looked like a leopard-skin; the orange ribbons on her bonnet were speckled, and otherwise toadied, while her face, after a diligent use of her handkerchief (having no glass, or friend to ask), had a complete shady tint all over it, giving her the appearance of one of those complexions of lead colour, presented by unfortunate invalids who have had occasion to undergo a course of nitrate of silver. Many other persons were in a spotty and smutted predicament, but none so bad as poor Mrs. Diggs, except, indeed her husband; but he was insensible to such matters.