“It’s so simple, after all,” she said to herself as she walked on. “I’ll tell him that as I was coming up Fifth Avenue from Cousin Cecilia’s I heard the fire-engines turning into Twenty-third Street, and ran after them. Just what _he_ would have done ... once ...” she ended on a sigh. At Thirty-first Street she turned the corner with a quicker step. The house she was approaching was low and narrow; but the Christmas holly glistening between frilled curtains, the well-scrubbed steps, the shining bell and door-knob, gave it a welcoming look. From garret to basement it beamed like the abode of a happy couple. As Lizzie Hazeldean reached the door a curious change came over her. She was conscious of it at once--she had so often said to herself, when her little house rose before her: “It makes me feel younger as soon as I turn the corner.” And it was true even today. In spite of her agitation she was aware that the lines between her eyebrows were smoothing themselves out, and that a kind of inner lightness was replacing the heavy tumult of her breast. The lightness revealed itself in her movements, which grew as quick as a girl’s as she ran up the steps. She rang twice--it was her signal--and turned an unclouded smile on her elderly parlourmaid. “Is Mr. Hazeldean in the library, Susan? I hope you’ve kept up the fire for him.” “Oh, yes, ma’am. But Mr. Hazeldean’s not in,” said Susan, returning the smile respectfully. “Not _in_? With his cold--and in this weather?” “That’s what I told him, ma’am. But he just laughed--” “Just laughed? What do you mean, Susan?” Lizzie Hazeldean felt herself turning pale. She rested her hand quickly on the hall table. “Well, ma’am, the minute he heard the fire-engine, off he rushed like a boy. It seems the Fifth Avenue Hotel’s on fire: there’s where he’s gone.” The blood left Mrs. Hazeldean’s lips; she felt it shuddering back to her heart. But a second later she spoke in a tone of natural and good-humoured impatience. “What madness! How long ago--can you remember?” Instantly, she felt the possible imprudence of the question, and added: “The doctor said he ought not to be out more than a quarter of an hour, and only at the sunniest time of the day.” “I know that, ma’am, and so I reminded him. But he’s been gone nearly an hour, I should say.” A sense of deep fatigue overwhelmed Mrs. Hazeldean. She felt as if she had walked for miles against an icy gale: her breath came laboriously. “How could you let him go?” she wailed; then, as the parlourmaid again smiled respectfully, she added: “Oh, I know--sometimes one can’t stop him. He gets so restless, being shut up with these long colds.” “That’s what I _do_ feel, ma’am.” Mistress and maid exchanged a glance of sympathy, and Susan felt herself emboldened to suggest: “Perhaps the outing will do him good,” with the tendency of her class to encourage favoured invalids in disobedience.