Mary and Rhoda made their way through the mass of interested spectators, not so many here as on the cooler side of the street. Where was Lisa? That was the first, indeed the only question. How had she come there? Where had she gone? There was a Babel of confusion, but nothing like the uproar that would have been heard had not part of the district’s population fled to the more interesting fire, and had not the whole thing been so quiet and so lightning-quick in its progress. The whole scene now burst upon their view. A few harassed policemen had stretched ropes across the street, and were trying to keep back the rebellious ones in the crowd who ever and anon would struggle under the line and have to be beaten back by force. As Mary and Rhoda approached, a group on the outskirts cried out, ‘Here she is! ’Tain’t more ’n a minute sence they went to tell her! Here she is now!’ The expected fire-brigade could hardly be called ‘she,’ Mary thought, as she glanced over her shoulder. She could see no special reason for any interest in her own movements. She took advantage of the parting of the crowd, however, and as she made her way she heard, as in a waking dream, disjointed sentences that had no meaning at first, but being pieced together grew finally into an awful whole. ‘Why didn’t the factory girls bring ’em out? Didn’t know they was there?’ ‘Say, one of ’em was saved, warn’t it?’ ‘Which one of ’em did she get down before the roof caught?’ ‘No, ’tain’t no such thing; the manager’s across the bay; she gave the alarm herself.’ ‘She didn’t know they was in there; I bet yer they’d run and hid, and she was hunting ’em when she seen the smoke.’ ‘Yes, she did; she dropped the girl twin out of the second-story window into Abe Isaac’s arms, but she didn’t know the boy was in the building till just now, and they can’t hardly hold her.’ ‘She’s foolish, anyhow, ain’t she?’ Mary staggered beyond Rhoda to the front of the crowd. ‘Let me under the rope!’ she cried, with a mother’s very wail in her tone—‘let me under the rope, for God’s sake! They’re my children!’ At this moment she heard a stentorian voice call to some one, ‘Wait a minute till the firemen get here, and they’ll go for him! Come back, girl, d-n you! you shan’t go!’ ‘Wait? No! _Not_ wait!’ cried Lisa, tearing herself dexterously from the policeman’s clutches, and dashing like a whirlwind up the tottering stairway before any one else could gather presence of mind to seize and detain her. Pacific was safe on the pavement, but she had only a moment before been flung from those flaming windows, and her terrified shrieks rent the air. The crowd gave a long-drawn groan, and mothers turned their eyes away and shivered. Nobody followed Marm Lisa up that flaming path of death and duty: it was no use flinging a good life after a worthless one. ‘Fool! crazy fool!’ people ejaculated, with tears of reverence in their eyes.