"I suppose you were where you had no business to be," said Missy, shortly. "Now, if you will eat your breakfast, and be silent, we shall thank you." Then Gabby retired into the hominy and there was a silence if not a peace. It was a dull morning--much fog, and little life in the air. Missy hadn't even looked out of the window. She dreaded the thought of what she was to see on the other side of the hedge. If it had been possible, she would have delayed the work that lay before her; but she was goaded on now by the thought that if she did not hurry, they must spend another night here, and eat another breakfast to the accompaniment of Gabby's information and observation. It was ten o'clock before she could get away, leaving directions to the servants to follow her. It was a dismal scene; the faultless lawn trampled and torn up, the vines torn from the piazza and lying stretched and straggling on the ground. The windows were curtainless, the piazza steps broken, the piazza piled with ladders and steps and buckets; the front door had a black eye. There was at this side of the house not much evidence of the fire, but at the rear it was much worse. The summer parlor was badly damaged, the sashes quite burnt black, the ceiling all defaced. The flames had reached the room above, Missy's own room, and here had been stayed. The windows were broken out, a good deal of the woodwork charred, and the walls much damaged with water. These two rooms were all that were seriously injured. It was quite wonderful that the damage had gone no further; there had been no wind, and Mr. Andrews had been on the spot; if they had not had these two things in their favor, the house must have gone. Peters had shown himself a respectable donkey, and none of the women but Goneril proved to have any head in such an emergency. Missy tried to be comforted by the smallness of the material injury. But the desolation and disorder of the pretty rooms! In her own, Missy fairly cried. She felt completely _dépaysée_. A few hundred dollars and a few weeks would put it all in order again, but Missy was not in a philosophic mood. She felt herself an outcast and a wanderer, and turning bitterly from the scorched spot, vowed never to love anything again.